Brothers in Arms: Angel in the Wasteland
by Arokhsteel
Summary: First there was Dead Space. Now there is the wastelands. Alex and Jason, now armed with new deadly weaponry, must now go out and find the girl in the expanse of the Capital Wasteland. All the while uncovering the enemy's presence. They fought as brothers in Dead Space. Now they must search for the Angel in the Fallout. Sequel to Brothers in Arms, Blood, and Dead Space.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: I own only my own OCs other than that i own NOTHING!**

"Quick move!"~ Person talking

'Bang'~ telepathic communication

**"Time to attack."**~ Synthesized voice

_"Three dog here./ Daddy!/ Report in."_~ Radio/Shade/Comm. Speech

**Critical Systems failure**~ Computer text/ Speech

Chapter 1: The lost Angel

(Alex P.O.V)

I rolled my shoulders as I walked into my room. Idly taking in the chrome that covered the walls. A single person bed hovering a foot of the ground, its white sheets and pillows strewn across it. A metal desk jutting out of the wall, and small bench just under it. This was the room I had been given when Jason and I had arrived on Gateway station. It had been almost three months since we had left the dead space universe and made the choice to fight. During this time we were trained to become Gatekeeper agents. It hadn't been easy at any point in the three months, it was probably the most grueling three months of my life. In the beginning we had the same instructors but soon that changed. We were given courses to go through to determine what kind of fighting style we excelled in. I quickly found in the gun range that while my aim with my bolt projector had been pretty good, I couldn't shoot a gun any worse if I had been blind folded.

Jason however when he picked up the weapon and aimed down sight he was like he was born to shoot. He didn't miss once, and he was fast. He wiped out all of the fourteen targets in fourteen seconds. Then we were sent to a room with a large red ring painted into the floor to test our close combat skills. We would face against some randomly selected people. While his shooting time was fast and impressive for a beginner, when it came to close hand fighting Jason kind of sucked. His time in the combat ring blew his time on the shooting rage out of the water. He didn't last five seconds.

It was then we found that I was an aggressive, close range fighter. It might have been the training that was 'downloaded' into my brain but I seemingly danced around my opponent, it also helped that I had superior strength to just about every human and some aliens on the station. In this way I could easily over power them with raw strength. Although this still didn't help me when the instructor decided to test me out. He took me down rather easily, using my own weight against me he managed to toss me out of the ring.

From there it was decided that while we would be taught in each course Jason would spend the majority of his time training in the shooting range, and would learn about all about the 'art' of shooting a gun. Meanwhile I would spend the majority of my time learning close combat, which eventually branched off into weapons. I quickly found that I took best with the sword; it wasn't all that much of a surprise given the use of the energy blades back in dead space, and like the hand to hand combat I took to bladed combat like a fish to water.

Then there was my dark energy manipulation training. From what the Councilor had told me psychics who unlock their full potential calling these people rare would be laughable. Magic swords, true love, a person with the ability to summon up a giant tap dancing lion, and a good movie that was written by M Night Shyamalan. These things are rare. The number of known psychics in the multiverse would take one hand to count. My addition to that number brought it up to five people. The Star Dragon representative was the only other person who had unlocked his full potential. He was more than happy to help. So he took me under his wing, both figuratively and literally. The first month was the most frustrating, my first task was to move a ten pound weight across a thirty foot room. The hard part however wasn't lifting the weight, it was figuring out how to manipulate dark energy. It took that one month to figure out how to do so and when I could, it was easy to move the weight across the room. After that Daegor taught me a number of other things. And now I was currently working on what he had set me on now.

I sat down on my messy bed and looked at the ebony ball that I held in my hand, roughly the size of a baseball. The point of the exercise was to throw the ball out and catch it before it hit the ground using dark energy. I continued to look at the ball for a short time before a beep emanated from my desk. With a sigh I stood and activated the interface. Soon after I was greeted by the sight of the Councilor.

"_We have found it." _ He said, "_Report to Gate 7 ready and armed."_ The line closed, and I let out an irritated groan. We made massive leaps and bounds in our training, and in the first two months we made greater strides than those who had in two years. Maybe it was due to the skills already being in our heads and we just had to familiarize ourselves with them. Still we were officially inducted into the Gatekeepers. Since then Jason and I would get these random calls from the Councilor on our free time, ordering us to do things around the station, like guard duty or something else of the like.

Normally I'd be irritated about being called in his usual way but if I was going to the gate that meant that they had finally found the universe where Angel was. I smiled as the little girl came to mind, while I hadn't had any 'visions' like I had before I awake in the med lab, but the young girl did pay me more visits over the three months. Although she did land me in a tight spot when I was shown talking to nothing on a video the room's video camera had caught. Thankfully I was able to convince them I wasn't crazy as I told them about Angel, it also helped that Jason backed me up. When Jason helped me out the Councilor ordered a search for her. It took three months to find the right one but they had done it. I tapped a few keys on the still glowing interface and a portion of the wall next to the desk slid upwards, revealing the Gatekeeper armor. The great thing about Gatekeeper armor was that now tow armors looked alike. Each armor was made of 'synthetic nanoweave' both Jason and I were given one after our induction, at first I didn't think all that much of it. It originally looked like a black jumpsuit that was two sizes too big but I put mine on it shrunk down almost instantly, becoming like a second skin. I was then carted into a strange chamber the door closed behind me. Seconds later a low hum rang through the small enclosed room. Before I even knew what was happening I got a crawling feeling all across my body.

I couldn't even react before my head was totally covered, my sight impeded for an instant before my sight cleared. After a few seconds the crawling feelings stopped and I looked down at my hands to see the previously black hands covered in segmented gray armor. We were later told that the nanoweave was a capable of converting energy into mass, and through the nanobots that made up the suit they would conform to the need of the user via scans. I'd found out later how I looked in my new armor.

The strange thing is that my armor looked as if the nanosuit from Crysis, and the Beta suit from Time Shift. The majority of it followed the sort of heavy muscled look the nanosuit gave, but it retained the beta suits form and sleek look. The muscled sections of the suit were colored silver, the main body a dark gray, then when it came to the helmet hit was took after the Beta suit, however instead of the strangely "y" shaped visor , the instead was shaped in a wide "v" and instead of being colored yellow was dark blue. I quickly took the suit down and began the process of placing it on, which was as simple as slipping it on via a opening on the suit's torso. Once the helmet was on I noticed the various displays booting up among them was armor integrity, radar, metabolic scans, and more. Then once the suit was booted up, I began to arm myself. Picking up the sword given to me by the instructors, it was a standard MDB or Molecular-disruption-blade. Like the name suggested it emits an energy field that disrupts the molecular structure of an object and makes it easier to cut. It didn't look that special, just an average three foot single edge guardless sword. I slug the blade onto my back where it was magnetically locked into place. I continued this locking two MDB combat knifes at my sides and a pistol at my hip. With all of my weapons in place I stepped out of my room, and made my way to Gate 7.

ΩΩΩ

I hurried over to the Gate and thankfully Jason was already there. Unlike my armor which was heavily armored because of my aggressive fighting style. Jason's however while still armored, was clearly meant for stealth, his own armor was colored black and dark green, a hood covering his head, shadowing his face, the only eliminations coming from a face mask and its dark green visor. On his back was a sizeable sniper rifle, which was called an 'anti-matter rifle'. They never explained what the anti-matter part was about so I just shrugged it off as an attempt to find a cool name for a gun. On either hip was a pistol and just on his boot a combat knife. He glanced back at me and gave a quick nod, his face totally unreadable from behind his facemask.

"You took your time." He said, his voice electronically distorted colored with mild amusement. I shrugged uncaringly, but said nothing as the councilor spoke.

"As I informed the two of you the universe where this 'Angel' is has been found." He said, an image of scorched earth appeared before the three of us. "The two of you have two objectives. First you must find the enemy base in this universe, and to determine their purpose and stop it."

I tilted my head to the side. "And I assume the second is to retrieve Angel?" I asked. The dark skinned man gave a curt nod.

"Correct. Besides that you are free to do what you think necessary to complete those objectives unless ordered otherwise." He said, turning away from us.

A low hum suddenly sounded, steadily becoming louder until a silver light ignited before us; the light illuminating a metal arch not four feet away from us. The silver light expanded until it filled the man sized archway.

"Good luck." Was the Councilor's last words as he walked past us and away from the Gate. Jason and I looked at one another for a moment before we moved towards the portal, preparing for what was in store for us.

ΩΩΩ

When we entered the portal I was overwhelmed by a strange warmth, and we found ourselves walking in the light. It wasn't until a few seconds later we were blinded by another light, this one however was natural, and didn't encompass us like the previous one had. When my eyes had adjusted to the light I found that we were standing in familiar scorched earth, rock and dirt as far as the eye could see. Suddenly my suit picked up on a faint signal and it played in my helmet. The sound was filled with static but out of the noise I could just make out a faint voice

"_Peo-le of the Capit-l Wasteland. Th-s is t-ree dog!"_ the voice _howled _ in a bad imitation of a wolf. I sighed and shut off the signal. I had many questions but started with the most obvious one.

What the hell is the Capital Wasteland?

* * *

**WHOO! Second installation is out baby!**

**Alex and Jason have their mission, now they must go out into the wastes and forge their path.**

**Also i would like to say that I put up a Poll some time ago and neglected to mention it, so here I am.**

**The Poll is if you guys want me to continue the Dead Space story after the guys left, while I focus solely on Isaac Clarke. Be sure to vote!**

**Don't forget to review. Just remember i feed all flames to baby Godzilla.**

**Thanks. Arokhsteel out.**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: I own only my own OCs other than that I own NOTHING!**

"Quick move!"~ Person talking

'Bang'~ telepathic communication

**"Time to attack."**~ Synthesized voice

_"Three dog here./ Daddy!/ Report in."_~ Radio/Shade/Comm. Speech

**Critical Systems failure**~ Computer text/ Speech

Chapter 2: The Beginning

(Alex P.O.V)

We wondered the wasteland for about half an hour. Jason and I had agreed on the plan to find Angel first, if we found her first then we could find the enemy base of operations. It wasn't fool proof, but it was the best plan we had at the moment. After some time walking we saw a large structure in the distance. We continued with renewed pace to get to it. When we did get up to it and saw what looked to be the gate to the things entrance a voice called out.

"Stop!" Both Jason and I, stopped and looked up to see at the rim of the structure were six men. All but one of them held assault rifles at the ready, that one man held a particularly nasty looking rocket launcher. While I knew my suit was meant to take punishment I somehow doubted that I'd be able to survive more than a few seconds of sustained fire, and that didn't even begin to cover Jason and his lighter armored suit.

Plus there were the rockets, those could be bad.

"Who are you? What is your business in Megaton?" said the center-most one. It was hard to tell from the distance and height they had on us but I could make out that the man had on a brown leather duster, a cowboy hat of all things on his head.

"Looking for someone." Jason replied.

"Mighty strange looking for someone who's searchin' for a person."

I shrugged my shoulders, "What you call strange we call necessary. Listen there's no need for this, we just want ask around, see if anyone has seen the person."

The man paused probably thinking about his options before he spoke again. "I'm going to come down there. Keep your weapons were we can see them. We clear?"

"Crystal."

The man disappeared from sight, leaving us with the other four gunman and rocket launcher wielding man. A minute later a loud grinding filled the air, apparently the gates needed to be oiled. The man stepped out from the entrance, rifle in hand. As he got closer I noticed his skin was a dark brown, hinting to African roots, and his face was covered by a heavy beard.

"Alright." He said, "I'm here, and you're looking for someone. Who?"

"A young girl," I told him. "At least seven years old, probably in a dress of some kind, black hair. Her name is Angel."

The dark skinned man raised a single eyebrow, "what would you be doing searching for someone that young?" he said suspiciously.

"I'm her father." The words came out so quickly, I couldn't stop it before it came out of my mouth. The man's suspicious gaze softened slightly.

"Sorry." He said his tone slightly sympathetic. "But no children have come through here." He paused his stance twitching slightly. "I'll let you into Megaton, so you can ask around; see if anyone knows anything, but if I do that, I want you to know that this is my town, don't start any trouble, there won't be any. Read me?"

I nodded, thankful that the man believed the lie. Well I suppose it wasn't a total lie, Angel did refer to me as her 'daddy' so I suppose it was at least a little true.

"Also," Jason said as he stepped up, "Do you know anything about a breached aircraft carrier?" I blinked and mentally berated myself for forgetting that particular detail.

The man's brow furrowed before he shook his head. "Can't say I have no." He holstered his rifle, and I could see the other five men relax, but they still held their weapons at the ready. "Name's Lucas Simms." He said.

"Alex Argent."

"Jason Steel."

ΩΩΩ

(Unknown Location)

A lone man lay curled on the floor of a stark white room, his face contorted in absolute agony. He screamed as pain rocketed through his body. The skin on his arm began to bulge and twist as if something were crawling under it. This spread until his whole body. Somewhere nearby a woman say in a chair observing this from a video camera. The captive man screamed a horrible bloodcurdling scream before his whole body exploded. The woman arched a single eyebrow.

"That's less than satisfactory." She said.

"Ma'am." The woman turned to a guard who had just walked into the room. "We picked up an energy blip on the radar. It is consistent with that of universal portals." The woman's eyes narrowed.

"One of ours?" she asked.

"Unknown ma'am." The woman thought for a bit before she responded. "Send out a small search party to determine if they are friendly or hostile. Do not engage if hostile, we cannot afford to give ourselves away. We are not ready." The guard gave a stiff nod and left the room. The interface in front of the woman changed, revealing a separate image. It showed a young girl, her small body clothes in a dirty white dress, her glowing yellow eyes wide, as she was carried through the facility on a lumbering form.

She was the girl who escaped nearly four months ago. The older woman scowled at the image, the girl had escaped unnervingly easy. Somehow she managed to escape withthe help of all the animals they had thus far run experiments on. It wasn't like she slipped past the animals and they ignored her while they slaughtered a good number of the unprepared guards. No all of the creatures had put in an active effort to protect the girl. Worse of all she now had subject DC-01, as her personal protector. While she was frustrated as far as a person could be with the girls escape. But with the escape brought many new questions and possibilities, such as how the girl managed to gain control over only the animals that had been experimented on yet the untouched ones remained hostile.

The woman looked to her left, at a glass cylinder, inside it a glowing red liquid.

"I will learn your secrets." She said to herself. "And when I do we will be one step closer."

ΩΩΩ

(Angel, Rivet City)

Angel hummed happily as she played with her toys. She was in a particularly good mood today. Why? Because her daddy was coming, she didn't know how she knew but it was just a feeling she got. The little sister looked over to a corner of her medium sized room and smiled toothily at the figure that sat in the shadows.

"Daddy's here." She said happily. Her shadowed protector lifter his head slightly and looked at her with unseen eyes , almost as if asking a question. Angel's smile widened, for some unknown reason and she spoke again.

"I think daddy would like you." She paused and suddenly frowned at the figure, "Why would daddy hurt me?" she asked. Something the equivalent to a keening noise emanated from the little sister's protector. The girl smiled again as she stood up and walked over to her shadowed protector. Once she was right in front of the creature it lifted its head to look her right in the eye. Angel just kept smiling and placed a gray skinned hand on what would have been the creature's forehead, and began to scratch.

The effect was immediate as a low purr rumbled out from the creature's chest.

"Don't worry Scooby!" she said cheerfully as she used the name she had given her protector. "I know daddy wouldn't hurt me, and I'm sure daddy will like you!" Then without further ado she plopped down right next to 'Scooby' and continued her happy humming. Scooby however looked at his small charge a while longer, as if he, (or it depending on your point of view) wanted to make sure no harm could ever befall her. Time passed quickly and soon the young girl was sound asleep. He wrapped one of his massive arms around her and pulled the girl inwards so as to keep her warm via his own body heat. He had no idea why he was so adamantly protective of this girl, but his instincts practically screamed at him to protect her with everything he could. And that was just what he would do; he would protect her no matter what.

ΩΩΩ

(Alex, Megaton)

Jason and I had split up to ask people around the small town if they had ever seen or come across. The people in Megaton were nice enough, except for that Jericho guy who seemed to have a stick up his ass. While Jason went off to some place called the 'Church of atom' I went and asked around in the saloon, eventually I found that there was a settlement way out to the west called Little Lamplight, apparently it was only populated by kids up until the age of eighteen. I set up a waypoint marker out in the general direction of the supposed kid-town. Then I went about trying to find out what kind of currency the people here used so I looked around the bar. After a minute or so I saw one customer exchange a beer for a hand full of bottle caps…

No comment.

So here I was; leaning against the wall at the main gate, waiting for Jason to show up again.

'Good god man where the hell are you?' I thought.

'I'm coming, I'm coming, keep your panties on.' He thought back.

'Jerkoff.'

Suddenly my radar blipped once and a dot appeared on the far side of the display. I turned my head to gaze at the new person who had entered my radar range. What I saw was a Caucasian male, dressed in a stark white pinstripe suit, a brown business hat on his head and tinted glasses. He had an smirk on his face that made me want to slug him, but I held back because I wasn't too keen on being shot at so I held back, hopefully he would just bypass me.

"My, my. Just when I had all but given up hope. My dear boy, I am very happy to make your acquaintance. I am Mister Burke."

'Son of a bitch.'

'What I say?'

'Not you.'

Burke continued speaking, unaware of my conversation with Jason, "And you, well, you and your friend are not a residents of this putrescent cesspool. That makes the two of you rather valuable individuals" His voice was deep, and had that certain air of superiority that made you want to really hurt them. I activated the synthesizer on my suit and spoke.

"**If you have a point to make them make it. Otherwise do not waste my time."** The voice was mostly to intimidate the man, make him leave me alone, unfortunately he didn't seem at all frightened by the tone. That and I would say that my armor's appearance would put most people off. But he just stood there his infuriating smirk still plastered on his face.

"Don't you see?" he asked his tone slightly condescending, "The both of you are free agents! You've no ties here, no interest in this settlements affairs. Megaton means nothing to you." The air behind him shimmered, "I represent certain… interests who view this town, this "Megaton", as a blight on a burgeoning urban landscape." He gestured around him at the town, unaware as the shimmer closed in behind him. "If this settlement were to… go away. Why, who would really care?" I narrowed my eyes, I didn't like where this was going. "Certainly not you, nor I…"

"**You're going to destroy this town?"** I asked

A maniacal glee flashed through his tinted glasses. "No, no, I'm merely a recruiter. YOU and your companion get to have the real fun." The shimmer twitched, I had to force my hand not to strike the man. I couldn't afford a fight.

'Neither of us can afford a fight'

"The undetonated atomic bomb, for which this town is named, is still very much alive." Burke said. My eyes darted to the large nuclear weapon, an outline formed over the bomb, the suit ran various scans over the device to find its core still active, "It just needs a little motivation." I looked back at the man, grinding my teeth in pure rage.

"I have in my possession a Fusion Pulse Charge. Once rigged to the bomb, it will be detonated, by you, at a secure location." The man laughed lightly. "Easy money, my friend." Out of the corner of my eye I saw Simms was walking up towards us. I smiled as a plan formed in my head.

'Follow my lead.' I took a breath and spoke. "**A tempting offer Burke."** The man's smirk grew wider. "**But I think I have a better one."** Burke, to his credit, only raised an eyebrow, "**I give you the finger."** Burke's smile twisted into a disapproving frown as I flipped him off. "**And my associate puts a bullet in the back of your head."** A click was heard, and Jason exited his suits cloak, the barrel of his pistol pressed firmly against the back of the madman's skull.

Before Jason could even comprehend pulling the trigger, Simms gruff voice called out.

"I thought I told the two of you not to start any trouble in my town." His dark face set into a heave scowl, assault rifle armed. Jason turned towards the man and spoke.

"We know. But this man was threatening to detonate the bomb in the center of the town." Almost immediately Burke called out how it was nothing but lies, but Lucas silenced him with a quick glare, before he redirected his attention at us.

"Quite the claim you have there… got any proof to back it up?" Simms asked, his eyes narrowing. Jason wordlessly lifted his left arm and the limb lit with a emerald interface. Not a second later Burke's voice flowed through the interface, and with each recorded word, Simms glared harder at the tuxedo wherein man.

"You rat bastard! Why would you want to set off the nuke?!" Burke sneered at the man.  
"You simpletons have no place here! You are here simply for the entertainment of others! People of higher importance. You are useless; I simply wished to fill that uselessness with something meaningful!" Then with lightning like speed Burke knocked Jason's hand away from his head and drew a hidden weapon. It was a silenced 10mm pistol, the damage this would do to Jason and his armor would be negligible, the damage to mine would be beneath notice, but it wasn't us I was worried about, it was Simms. His leather duster would offer little to no protection at this range and Jason was sent off balance from the blow, leaving him out just the time needed for Burke to end Simms. I couldn't draw my sword fast enough to try and stop him. So I did the only other thing I could think of, my eyes found Burke's arm and focused. Not a second later silver energy encased the entirety of the madman's arm. Burke jerked as the energy held his gun wielding arm in place. Before it twisted and crunched, the man didn't have a chance to scream before the same energy impacted him again in the chest, launching him a good ten feet away. Burke landed with a heavy thud, rolling slightly.

Jason having regained his balance after Burke's attack aimed his pistol again and fired. Burke didn't get a chance to retaliate as the round passed right through the man's skull. As expected Burke's entire body went limp. I looked at Simms who had yet to move, suddenly looked at me then Jason before he sighed and holstered his gun.

"I must be getting slow in my old age" he growled out in frustration. "Thanks for saving my hide back there." His tone changed to that of appreciation. He looked me over once before speaking again. "That was some mutation by the way." I blinked owlishly before It dawned on me that he was talking about my dark energy manipulation. The reminder of my act made me aware of the fact that I had the granddaddy of all migraines, ripping through my skull like a herd of wildebeest on stampede.

"Yeah," I groaned. "The headaches I could do without."

"Well you helped me, and Megaton. For that it will always be open to you."

Jason turned to Simms, his body shaking slightly, and when he spoke, his voice hitching slightly, although it was hard to tell through the face mask's speakers.

"Does this mean we're friends?" he asked, trying to use humor to cover his unease. The dark skinned man just shrugged. "Means my men won't shoot you on sight." And with that the armed man strode off, strangely content with leaving Burke's corpse in the middle of the street. I looked at Jason and he seemed to sense my eyes on him, he turned and looked at me.

"You okay?" I asked placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah." He said as he steadied his voice. "I guess I've been preparing myself for this. I mean, we're kinda soldiers now. Had to kill someone sooner or later. I suppose it was just preparing for it. I feel like I'm gonna puke but I'm good."

"If you say so." I said slowly

Jason shook his head, attempting to rid it of the thoughts plaguing it. "So you find anything on Angel? Because I came up dry."

I nodded. "Apparently there's a settlement out there made up entirely of children called Little Lamplight…"

* * *

**Welcome to to chapter 2!  
**

**I would like to inform every one that the poll is still up. Please VOTE! I've decieded that I'm going to leave the poll up up until the end of April. Please! Vote!**

**Also I would like to (ahem) _peacefully_ remind you that you must review! Do so or get fed to baby Godzilla! All flamers will be forced to watch Spider-man 3, and Superman returns. At the same time.**

**Anywho thanks for reading Arokhsteel is out!**


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: I own only my own OCs other than that I own NOTHING!**

"Quick move!"~ Person talking

'Bang'~ telepathic communication

**"Time to attack."**~ Synthesized voice

_"Three dog here./ Daddy!/ Report in."_~ Radio/Shade/Comm. Speech

**Critical Systems failure**~ Computer text/ Speech

Chapter 3: Among the wastes

(Alex P.O.V, somewhere in the Wastes)

It had been a few hours since Jason and I had left Megaton. I quickly looted Burke's body, finding that he had around ninety-six caps and twenty 10mm rounds. Ell in actuality he had more than just that but it was mostly junk and the pulse charge he had mentioned, I destroyed the device to make sure no one would be threatening Megaton any time soon. However the rest we left on him, taking only the ammo and caps. I briefly thanked that our weapons had the capability to take any kind of ammo we had on us into a useable round for our weapons. While I was sure I wouldn't be using my pistol all that much I was thankful for it. It meant that we wouldn't have to worry too much about finding compatible ammo. As we walked I levitated two boulders each about a foot in height.

While Daegor taught me he had said that my progress with dark energy manipulation was nothing short of amazing. While I couldn't do much in the way of manipulation, the ability was like a muscle, the more I used it the stronger it became. I had thought my current level would be enough for combat. I was proven wrong as when I accessed the ability with Burke I was proven wrong with how quickly I reached my limit. Thus to my current position with the two boulders, this was my attempt to get some 'exercise'. While I my previous exertion had something like doubled my ability, I could barely hold the two a foot of the ground. I grit my teeth as the sliver glow holding the two large rocks in air flickered before dying out, the two rocks coming to the ground with a resounding crash. Not a second later the migraine came back to give me a good, hard kick to the balls. I let out a quite groan, placing my hand to my helmet.

"You know you never answered my question." Jason said in an annoyed voice.

"Because it's a stupid question." I groaned.

Jason sighed dramatically, "No it's perfectly reasonable, we're universal travelers. We might end up in that universe and find ourselves without food, so I ask again: which Pokémon do you think would taste the best?"

I shrugged my shoulders, still holding my head. "Don't know, don't care. We have better things to worry about."

Jason sighed again but less dramatically, "Yeah, you're right." He admitted. I blinked in surprise and gave my masked friend a skeptical look from under my helmet. There was no way he would have given up so easily.

"Such as allowing you to see the fact that Godzilla is inferior to King Kong." He said cheerfully.

I blinked once before growling. "Like hell he is!" I half shouted. I immediately regretted it when my migraine. "I fail to see how that overgrown baboon could even hope to compare to the king of the monsters. For god's sake man Godzilla is over three hundred feet tall! Kong? A measly twenty five feet."

Jason didn't say anything but I could practically feel his idiot grin from under that mask. "I also don't think that Kong can breathe atomic fire. I also know he was taken down by a bunch of guys in airplanes. "Godzilla has fought aliens and come out on top. Hell he's even fought a mechanized version of himself. And most importantly, Godzilla didn't get whipped by some random blonde chick. And another thing-"I snapped my mouth shut as I suddenly realized what he was doing.

"You were trying to get me to geek out."

Jason whistled innocently, "I have no clue what, you are talking about."

"There are no words that can describe my hate for you right now."

Jason let out a barking laugh as we continued down our path to Little Lamplight. With a pained groan I turned back to the cracked ground before us. The scenery wasn't getting any better as we walked, the wasteland's colors ranged from a light gray, sandy brown, and scorched brown. From right then I knew one thing; this was going to be a long trip.

ΩΩΩ

(South of Megaton)

"You getting any readings Cortez?"

Cortez, a woman of average height and build, her skin lightly tanned and her blond hair cut short, looked back at her captain and shook her head.

"There's nothing more than the usual radiation, the reading we got out here could have been little more than equipment malfunctioning, but then again, portal energy dissipates quickly after the containment field drops. We arrived too late to see if the signal was genuine." She said as she stood from her kneeling position.

"I beg to differ."

Cortez and the captain turned to the third of their party, while the captain was covered head to toe in combat armor and Cortez herself wore the standard armor and helmet, the third of their party preferred to wear a hooded duster, taking the combat armor one found in this universe. The hooded scout pointed to a formation of rock right behind him, moving out of the way so as to allow them to see. Roughly eight yards ahead of him said rock formation stood, what stood out about this particular formation was that right in the center of it was a perfectly cut sphere. Almost as if someone had cut out section of rock.

"We got a bridge entry." He said, "Think you could get a reading from this?" Cortez shook her head again.

"No, while it's a definite sign of entry, as I said before the energy would have dissipated by now." The captain stiffened slightly and placed his hand up to the side of his helmet and signaled the two to be quite.

"Yes ma'am?" he said. "Correct, we found the site… no, no ma'am, all residual energy has dissipated… new orders? Why would we-"the man flinched suddenly as if he had been struck. "No. No that won't be necessary Yes ma'am." He lowered his hand and looked over at the two scouts.

'We've been given orders to divert and gather subjects for the experiments for bunker 04-326."

The hooded scout shifted on his feet, "Why would we do that? Last I checked we had a surplus of subjects."

"Something about a sudden breakthrough, anything beyond that is outside your and my pay grade." The helmeted captain then turned and began walking in the opposite direction, not giving the two a chance to respond. They looked at one another before the hooded scout shrugged and followed after him. Cortez gave an annoyed sigh and followed after, what neither saw however was the captain's shoulders shaking ever so slightly.

ΩΩΩ

(Jason P.O.V, Little Lamplight)

I looked over the cavern walls as Alex and I walked down the path. In the bright light I could make out the tell tale signs of combat. Dried blood splattered across the walls, empty shell casings littered the floor. Hell there were even a few stray weapons that lay forgotten on the ground. I frowned as I activated my visor's scan function. In an instant my vision was tinted blue and the computer started sorting out the information that came through to it.

I preferred to call it my 'Sharpshooter vision'. Alex however basically called it my every own 'Detective mode'. And more or less he was kinda right. Even as I looked over the weapons and blood spatters, a line of numbering came across the visor. I frowned slightly as I read the numbers. If what I was reading was right then the fight happened somewhere close to two days ago.

I would have contemplated why the cavern was in this state but I suddenly became aware that Alex had stopped in his place and that we were in a large central chamber, a large gate made up of various objects. That was all well and good, but what caught my attention was the set of AKs protruding from various ports in the gate. Then there was the series of clicks, each signaling that the safety was taken off.

"Twice in one day?" I whined. The guns immediately began to fire and I saw Alex dive behind some cover. I however activated my cloaking feature and quickly joined up with him behind the cover.

"You slaver assholes might have gotten some of us! But there's no way in hell you 're getting the rest of us!" a loud but defiantly childish voice shouted from the other side.

"Slavers?!" Alex said in disbelief. I however just palmed my face.

We really couldn't catch a break.

* * *

**Yeah yeah I know, really short chapter. Sorry but i got a writers block with this chapter and I could think of what else to do with it. **

**However! I will try my hardest to make the next chapter much longer than this one.**

**Don't forget to review.**

**Arokhsteel OUT!**


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: I own only my own OC's and lore  
**

"Quick move!"~ Person talking

'Bang'~ telepathic communication

**"Time to attack."**~ Synthesized voice

_"Three dog here./ Daddy!/ Report in."_~ Radio/Shade/Comm. Speech

**Critical Systems failure**~ Computer text/ Speech

Chapter 4: Big problems in Little Lamplight

(Jason, Little Lamplight)

I'll be one of the first to admit that I'm not perfect. Such as I wasn't the greatest close combat fighter, I couldn't win a game of poker to save my life, my poker face sucked, and I had a strange irrational fear of the color pink, to name a few. And just like you would guess Alex had his imperfections, most were pretty minor like mine but he was currently displaying his more _explosive_ of personality ticks.

"YOU DAMN BRATS! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING SHOOTING AT SOME RANDOM PEOPLE THAT COME WALKING INTO THIS CAVE! DO WE EVEN LOOK LIKE SLAVERS YOU DAMN BRATS!?"

He had a tiny anger management problem.

"Up yours jackass!"

I sighed irritably, "Despite what you may think or what my irritable friend may lead you to believe with his attitude, we do not wish you any harm."

"Do you think I'm stupid?" the boy yelled back. I shot Alex a quick glare,

'Not. One. Word.' I heard my armored friend growl but otherwise made no sound.

"Listen we just need to come inside. We're looking for a girl. Goes by the name-"

"Like hell you stupid mungos! There's no way in hell I'd let you in MacCready would have my head if he ever came back!" Alex and I looked at one another for a moment.

"Mungo?" he said carefully, as if he was making sure he had heard right. I nodded "Mungo."

I turned back to the AK wielding children. "Who's MacCready? Your leader?"

"None of your business!" The child yelled back.

"Yeah, he's their boss." Alex deadpanned.

"You idiots!" yelled a second voice, this one distinctly feminine, "We need help! And I'm not letting you scare off them like you did everyone else who came into the cave!"

"But-"the boy began but he was cut off by the girl, "NO! Put those things away!" Something akin to a whimper echoed from the other side of the gate and I heard a number of clicks. Both Alex and I peaked over the side to see a young girl, probably nine years old, her messy brown hair held out her face by a hair band. The girl smiled as she looked at us.

"You're funny looking ones." She said. "I'm Lucy, the doctor for this town." I raised an unseen eyebrow that someone her age could be a efficient doctor but didn't say a thing. Now wasn't the time to satisfy my curiosity.

"Listen. I heard how you're looking for someone but you see information is precious." I narrowed my eyes.

'A trade then.' Alex thought.

"We might be able to help you find who you're looking for, but the two of you'll need to help us. As the genius probably implied…" she lazily wave a hand off to the side, gesturing to the unseen boy.

"Some of our people were captured by slavers. If you could help free them, we would be grateful and could help you with find this person."

"Do we have a choice in this?" Alex asked, although I could tell he didn't expect an answer. He turned to me. "Well?" I sighed heavily; we couldn't leave people in the hands of slavers, much less children. Ak-47 wielding children but children none the less. I looked back at Lucy as she stared at us.

"Where are they?" I asked. The brown haired girl smiled.

"While we don't know exactly where they went, as we never leave little lamplight, we do know that they are somewhere off to the north-east, in a place called 'Paradise Falls'." I snorted at the name; leave it to slavers to pick an ironic name, probably to draw in unsuspecting victims. I made a motion for Alex to stand as I did so myself.

"We'll get your people." Alex said, "Just be sure to help us when we get back" He turned and began to walk back to the tunnel entrance. I started to sigh but stopped myself and just settled for grunting.

ΩΩΩ

(Alex, Wasteland)

We didn't make much progress before night fell, so we decided to look for some shelter, we continued north east and came across a hill overlooking a field of blackened and overturned trees. A large open van off in the distance, and an over turned car not much further out. I turned to say something but movement caught my vision, and apparently Jason's as well as we both dropped to the ground. My visor compensated for the low light and zoomed in on the figures. The suits onboard computer took an outline, then in seconds small lines of code zipped over my screen as the suit checked the Gatekeeper codex, the source of all things they knew of the multiverse. Soon in the corner of my vision the image of a large burly, yellow skinned human, his head bald, muscles bulging, his teeth exposed in a permanent snarl as it looked as if his lips had been removed. Under the image in bold lettering two words were displayed.

"Super Mutant?" Jason asked, getting the same information in his HUD.

"Says that they are the result of something called an FEV, and more than a little of radiation. Also that they are highly aggressive, and almost always move in groups, varying from two to fifteen. Favored weapons include, sledgehammers, super sledge, and Chinese assault rifle, rocket launchers, and occasionally miniguns." I said as I read off the list. I continued to look over the expanse, my computer picking out four other mutants on the prowl. From the scans my suit was running all of them, the first we spotted had a sledgehammer in hand, two of them had assault rifles, but the fourth one however, had a rather large and threatening rocket launcher.

"Should we go around?" Jason asked.

I shook my head, "No, if we play this smart we can take out these things won't know what hit'em."

I reached for my sword and soundlessly pulled it free of the magnetic lock.

"Are you battle ready?" Jason asked as he pulled his rifle free. I gave him a look but he wasn't deterred. With I sigh I held out my unoccupied left hand and focused. Soon a familiar silver glow encompassed my closed fist and a warm feeling rushed over the enclosed appendage. As I felt out the energy that I could currently control. I faintly recalled one of the things Daegor had taught me in the month long period we were on Gateway, Drakyllen. It was one of the only words of his people that was within reach of the vocal abilities. And ironically it was the name his people gave to those like me and himself. Meaning 'Dark Ones'. I shook my head lightly clearing my head of its thoughts and focused on the feeling. Gauging by the mild work out I had been conducting for the majority of the day I guessed that I had one, maybe two concussive blasts in me.

"Yeah." I finally replied, "Just enough to do some damage."

Jason gave a quick nod as he turned back and aimed down at the Super Mutants through his scope.

"How we gonna do this?" he asked.

"You take out the one with the launcher and one of two with the ARs, I'll handle the other two." I said, Jason only grunted in confirmation. "On my mark." I pushed myself upwards into a slightly crouched position. "Three." Jason loaded his rifle, "Two." I pressed the trigger on my MDB, the blade emitting a low hum, signaling its activation. "One." I took in a breath.. "Mark."

I burst forward, kicking up dirt as I sped towards the hammer wielding mutant. Not one second after my sudden departure the thunderous crack of Jason's rifle, followed soon after by the unmistakable squelching sound as the rocket launcher wielding Super Mutant's head exploded. The remaining mutants reacted frighteningly fast as the three remaining spun around, ready to attack. I was still too far away to take any of the mutants on physically, so whipped out my pistol and fired three shots. In a rather predictable fashion two of those flew by the yellow giant harmlessly, but the third impacted it right in the chest. While the damage done wasn't significant but it was enough to throw it off balance. This was all I needed as I closed the distance and gave a horizontal swing of my sword. There was little resistance as the blade cleanly cleaved the muscle bound giant in two. I spun around and aimed a focused blast at my second target. The attack left me feeling slightly weak and gave me a headache but it did the job of launching the AK wielding Super Mutant onto its back. I quickly holstered my pistol and took a firm hold of the sledgehammer still held in the hands of the first mutant and yanked it free. I ran forward and brought the hammer down onto the fallen mutants head with a satisfying crunch. Unfortunately I gauged the amount of strength I put into the blow wrong and ended up snapping the weapon in half. A thunderous crack and pained yell signaled that Jason had taken out the final Super Mutant. I looked back and saw that he had actually blown a fist sized hole in the mutant's chest, just about where its heart should have been.

I stood straight and signaled Jason down. Now we had to loot the bodies and use the van as a kind of cover for the night.

ΩΩΩ

(Angel, The next day, Rivet City)

Angel giggled as she sat firmly on Scooby's back as he carried her to the science lab, four Rivet city guards close behind them, weapons at the ready. They had been understandably reluctant letting the giant and dangerous animal on the ship. Truth be told they would have killed the creature by now if it were not for Angel. What unnerved the guards was the fact that her protector was what they would thing was a Deathclaw. It looked almost exactly like the hulking monstrosities, but only in body shape, whereas Deathclaws were sandy brown in color, Scooby as Angel called him, was black as sin. Also he was damn near impossible to see in any low light environment. Then there was the fact that they saw the creature had the ability to literally turn itself invisible. Not like stealth boy invisibility where there was a shimmer around the form, but 100% invisible, not one trace could be seen. Then it could breathe fire and to top it all off it had claws that looked like they could turn a Super Mutant into steak tare tare.

Take all this into mind and one could be quite easily shocked that the Omegaclaw, as some had taken to calling it, was so gentle with the young girl, and that it listened to anything and everything she told it to do. Said case was proven when she told him to roll over, play dead, and sing. The guards cringed slightly at the last one. It had sounded like someone was running nails along a chalk board. Then there was how the creature just turned into putty whenever Angel scratched it in the right place.

When the group arrived at the science lab Angel was immediately greeted by Doctor Li while she stood a respectable distance from the girl's protector. The people of Rivet city learned quickly that anyone who got within the Omegaclaw's six foot reach was free game. The first unfortunate victim to learn this was a man by the name of Zimmer, he was just some bitter old man. He had called Angel a freak of nature. Angel naturally didn't take to well to this and looked on the verge of tears. Scooby defiantly didn't take to it as he felt his charge's sadness and understood the man caused it, so he did what any one would have done: he ripped Zimmer apart and ate his corpse. While this didn't sit well with the guards Angel promised that Scooby wouldn't do it again, although if everyone was completely honest no one was particularly broken up about the old man's death. From then on Scooby was like a coiled viper waiting to strike at whoever got to close to his charge.

Li was one of the few people that the Omegaclaw tolerated, and even then it was only because Angel told him that he was to never hurt her. That didn't stop him from snapping at the doctor whenever she tried to take tissue samples. Still today Angel was in for another check up with the doctor. Li was mainly interested in the substance that flowed through the girl, and strangely enough the Omegaclaw as well. Some kind of genetic compound that strangely originated from some foreign mass in her stomach of all places, unlike Scooby's supply which remained flowing through his circulatory system. When Li went about trying to remove the object all attempts cause Angel extreme pain. And that was more than enough reason for Scooby let the heads roll, of course he would have had the guards not pumped him full of enough tranquilizers to put down an elephant. This gave the doctor the chance to see how the two substances were related. She found out that with great surprise that the two substances were, as far as she could tell, one and the same. When she brought the two samples close together the bit taken from Angel pulsed once before the second pulsed right after it.

What this could mean Li could only guess, but it obviously had mutative qualities if Angel's appearance and Scooby's abilities.

Today however Li was just giving the girl a check up while looking for a way to safely remove the mass from her body. Li noticed however that Angel's usual million watt smile was an extra thousand watts brighter.

"Did you get Scooby to do a new trick?" the doctor asked as the girl hopped down from her perch.

"Nope!" Angel said happily. Li arched an eyebrow in question.

"Then what's got you so happy?" Angel bounced up and down as she continued to smile.

"He's here." She said happily. Li sighed, Angel was a sweet girl but getting information out of her was like pulling teeth out of a Behemoth.

"Who's coming honey?"

"My Daddy." Li froze the second those two words left the ashen girls' mouth. Her father? How could she possibly know he was coming?

"How could you possibly know that?" Angel shrugged her shoulders, being about as useful to the woman as a sack of potatoes.

"Sometimes I see daddy in my dreams, fighting monsters. Then there's daddy's friend. He's funny." Angel said as she rambled on, she did that a lot. Li was going to suggest that they get back to the check up when the little girl spoke again. "Daddy said about going to someplace called Paradise Falls." For the second time Doctor Li froze. How could the girl know that name, as far as she knew Angel had escaped from her captors out past Old Olney and according to her she went out past Canterbury, and entered the city from the east, she never came close to that slavers den.

Li then began to run the scenarios in her head, and every single one came back to the substance. Maybe it caused some form of instability in the mind, and was feeding her information she had heard while sleeping. But it could also have to do with the fact that Angel might have come across a map a labeled map of the wasteland when the girl had hacked into their terminal grid. While she was ditzy at the best of times she had proved that she was a genius when it came down to technology. Although whenever Li asked about this Angel just said that she told the machines to tell her things.

While Li was curious to the implications she needed to get it back on track, she'd file this away for later now she needed to check the girl over, so she ushered Angel to one of the tables. She would file this away for later.

ΩΩΩ

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

We had been walking for the majority of the morning after we left the place where we had camped back where we killed the Super Mutants. The Sun was now high overhead and by some twist of fate, Jason had gotten bored.

"Are we there yet?" he asked again.

"No."

…

…

…

…

"Are we there yet?"

"No." I growled out more forcefully

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

"Are we there yet?"

"No!" I snarled as I turned my head sharply at my friend. He was quiet for about fifteen more minutes before he opened his mouth to speak.

"If you say one word I will break my foot off in your ass." I growled. There was an audible click as he shut his mouth tightly. Not five minutes later I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"Alex-"

"NO! We are not there yet so shut up!" I yelled as I spun around to face him.

Jason simply raised his right and pointed. "Actually we are." He deadpanned.

I looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a structure about a kilometer away, while it wasn't very tall it had a large circumference. I grit my teeth and glared bloody daggers at Jason.

"Shut up." I growled out as I turned and began to walk up as to get a better look at the slaver settlement, ignoring Jason's distorted laughter the whole way.

* * *

**Yo people what is up! Arokhsteel is in the house! The newest chapter of Angel in The Wasteland is here! Sorry for the long wait, but now it's out and we can rejoice! **

**Also I took the Poll down and there were a grand total of 7 votes. **

**...**

**Baby Godzilla's having a feast tonight. **

**Anywho the vote was for not continuing by one. So I guess I won't be doing that story any time soon, maybe after I've gotten all my stories sorted out. But thanks for keeping with me.**

**Right so remember to Review or I will strangle all of you with the intestines of a goat! :D **

**Arokhsteel out!**


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: I own only my own OCs other than that I own NOTHING!**

"Quick move!"~ Person talking

'Bang'~ telepathic communication

**"Time to attack."**~ Synthesized voice

_"Three dog here./ Daddy!/ Report in."_~ Radio/Shade/Comm. Speech

**Critical Systems failure**~ Computer text/ Speech

Chapter 5: Legends of the Wastes

(Cortez, Paradise Falls)

Cortez sighed as she looked over the group of slavers. To any random wastelander they were a force to be reckoned with. They had over a dozen guards; the majority of them wore some form of merc armor, save for two who word makeshift metal suits. Their weapons ranged from assault rifles to mini guns. All of them had the sadistic look and feel that they had killed before hand would do it a hundred times more without hesitation. Yet for all their fire power, for all their swagger, they were still wastelanders. None of them had been trained anymore than necessary, learning only as they went as they traveled through the wastes. In a way this made them dangerous. But to Cortez and her small group, they were hardly a threat. Of course they were outnumbered but the slavers lacked discipline. They relied on intimidation and fear to keep the rest of the wasteland at bay.

From what she could also divine from her current meeting, they were also stupid. They marched about as if they owned the place, chests puffed out head held high. Then there were the few who looked over at her as if she were nothing but a tool for their own pleasure.

She was quite sure the only thing discouraging them was her rather large shotgun. At least they weren't total idiots. She looked over at her hooded squad mate as he carved away at a piece of wood with a knife. It was also a bit frustrating that he had yet to tell them his name, well tell her his name, the captain seemed totally content with this unknown working with them. She looked over to where the captain had gone. He went off with some dark skinned man that she didn't care to learn the name of, most likely he was the leader of the group. Probably to negotiate the price of the newest subjects.

Cortez turned her attention to the would-be subjects; a group of about six children, all of them had taken to calling them particularly foul names. She scoffed slightly, brats acted pretty tough. That meant that the scientists would have a field day breaking them.

"How much longer are we going to go at this?" she asked. The question was more focused towards herself but regardless her hooded squad mate answered.

"As long as we need to. Supposedly there's been a breakthrough, we are supplying more subjects to further the scientists studying of the compound."

Cortez scowled, "I see no reason for all this cloak and dagger," she growled "why do we hide ourselves, why do we work so hard at learning about this compound. All we need do is gather our strength and attack."

The man blew away some shaving from his work and continued carving. "I wouldn't expect a grunt like you to understand but this compound will bring us to new heights." He said dismissively, never one looking away from his work in progress . Cortez snarled at being called a grunt but before she could move she saw the captain coming out of the building where the lead slaver took residence.

"Gather up the subjects, we move now." He said as he walked past them.

The hooded man chuckled once before he put his creation away. He twirled his knife as he walked over to the slave pens. "Sir yes sir." He said, his tone borderline mocking. The captain gave a low growl before he continued walking.

It took a while to cuff up all the brats but when it was done the three of them plus their new captives ventured outwards to the bunker. Soon they vanished down the waste. Two hours later two figures became visible in the distance. Headed straight for the slaving headquarters.

ΩΩΩ

I glared at the slaving headquarters as I looked at them through my visor. As much as I hated to admit it they were pretty well fortified. Only one entrance, and they definitely didn't have a shortage on guards.

"What do you think?" Jason asked from my side. I deactivated my visors zoom and looked at him.

"That attacking now would be stupid." I said. "We don't know how many they have or what weapons we're up against. Best course of action?" The question was rhetorical because Jason had no doubt heard my thoughts.

"Attack under the cover of night." He said instantly. "We will have the advantage of seeing them, and the element of surprise."

I nodded. "So we wait." I said 'and hope that they haven't already been sold.'  
ΩΩΩ

Grouse grumbled lightly as he looked out over the pitch blackness of the wasteland, tonight was a new moon which meant he had absolutely zero light to aid in his ability to see, and then there was the fact that the light next to him prevented his eyes from adjusting to the darkness. He glanced over to one of the other slavers that were currently on guard with him. He of course had the luck that it was some drunk. The man muttered in his alcohol induced sleep. Grouse scowled as he turned to look back at the wasteland, it was going to be a long night. Suddenly something flashed by his vision, nothing solid but it looked like a shimmer in the air, like someone using a stealth-boy. The slaver tensed as he moved to stand up but found himself locked in place as a silver glow encompassed his body. A muffled gasp prompted him to look over at the other slaver to see a hooded figure standing over him, his knife hilt deep in the man's chest. Grouse didn't have a chance to call out as his head was violently jerked to the side. The last thing he felt and heard, was his neck snapping.

(Alex)

I stepped forward as I pulled my sword free of its magnetic holster, giving it a few experimental swings.

'Ready?' I thought over to Jason, watching as he roughly pulled his knife out of the now dead slaver's chest.

'Born ready.' He replied. I ran further into the slaver den; Jason right behind me, I then noticed that my radar was reading only one contact in our immediate position. We came up to the slaver quickly, he spun when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps but by then it was too late and I had already bisected him with my blade.

Slaver was dead before he hit the ground. I looked over and saw he was guarding a door, most likely the entrance to the main camp. I pulled my pistol free of its magnetic holster and primed the weapon.

"Let's rock!" I said before I kicked the entrance, with a small application of dark energy the doors flew apart and we charged in. Almost immediately Jason started firing off round from his two pistols, I ran forward to the center of the encampment, my suits onboard computer reading in eight contacts. I fired my pistol twice. Seven contacts. A woman in a dress came rushing at me a sword held high. I ducked under her clumsy swing and brought my blade up to meet her chest. The blade sunk in until it was hilt deep before I pulled it out and rolled to the side, dodging the strange looking sledge hammer from a second slaver. Six contacts. Before he could make another move a single shot rang out. His armored chest exploded in blood and gore as it was hit by a round from Jason's anti-matter rifle. Five contacts. I quickly holstered my pistol and with a quick application of dark energy I pulled the now dead man's sledge hammer into my waiting hand. I looked ahead to see a second slaver who wore similar metal armor to the one Jason had just killed. His face was painted with his fury as he charged. I dashed up to him, swinging the sledge hammer in a horizontal arc. The blow caught him by the side, combined with my strength and the total metal composition of the sledge hammer his metal armor did little to protect him as it bent inwards.

The man gasped in pain and was sent tumbling into the ground. A second later there was a second shot as Jason fired a second shot. And if the resulting squelch was anything to go by I could safely assume that the man was now dead. Four contacts. I looked over to the remaining to see that one of the slavers had a mini gun that was starting to spin.

"Oh hell no." I rushed forward, with a swing of my sword I sliced right through the multiple barrels, then brought the sledge hammer downwards caving the man's skull inward. A third shot rang out followed by a shower of blood and bone. Two Contacts. I let go of the sledge hammer and charged dark energy in my hand. I turned and slammed my now glowing hand into the chest of the nearest slaver, releasing the energy on impact. The man gagged once before his chest caved inward. One contact.

'Let us see if he knows where the boss is.' I thought before quickly grabbing the remaining slaver by the throat.

**"Hello there."**I said as I tightened my grip. **"How about we play a game? You tell us where your boss is and I won't kill you."** The man whimpered and hastily pointed to a building not fifteen feet away.

"Eulogy lives in there with two of his own personal slaves, trained to defend and kill for him. He has the key to the slave pens and all the data on all the slaves we have currently and all the slaves we have sold in the past." The slaver said, his words coming out in a blur. I blinked once… twice… three times before I frowned.

'That was too easy.' I whined mentally.

'Well we did just slaughter all his coworkers.' Jason thought back

'True…' I turned my attention back to the cowering slaver as he shook uncontrollably in my grasp. Part of me debated letting him go, the other much larger part told me that he was a slaver. It was a rather simple internal argument, he was a slaver, and he had sold people for money. As far as I'm concerned ridding the world of people like him was doing a public service. I began to tighten my grip on the man's neck. His eyes widened fearfully as he gasped for air.

"Y-you said that you wouldn't kill me!" He gasped out. I stopped tightening my grip and sighed .

**"I did say that didn't I?" **I turned to Jason**. "Would you?"** Jason pulled out one of his pistols and fired off a single round. I tossed the now lifeless body to the side and sheathed my sword.

"You think that might have been cruel?" Jason asked as the two of us moved up to the building.

"He was a slaver. He got what was coming to him." I said dismissively as I replaced the magazine in my pistol, stowing the other away so the new bullets could be produced in it.

"Fair point." He relented

(Jason, Eulogy's pad)

I stepped into the building the slaver had designated, dual pistols reloaded and drawn, Alex came in right behind me sword out, his body wreathed in silver energy.

"The two of you got a lot nerve!" a voice yelled out. "Coming into my turf, killing my men."

**"This could have been avoided if you weren't slavers."** Alex yelled out. **"No man should live in chains."**

"Cry me a damn river! Who do you think you are! The law?" The voice laughed "I've news for you. There's no law in the wasteland, it's every man for himself."

**"Sorry but we didn't get the memo."** I called out as I l scanned the room, and the balcony above us.** So we're going to have to continue with what we've been doing. So if you would be so kind as to surrender this will be quick and painless."**

"Hope you can back those words up, because you're dead if you don't." The voice replied back. Not a second later a strange noise filled the air, when I looked towards the noise I saw a dark skinned woman in a tattered pink dress wielding a strange looking pistol in hand. But what demanded my attention was the glowing green ball of some kind of energy sailing towards me. Before I had a chance to react the ball slammed into my chest. I gagged once as the energy round burned through my armor and flung me to the ground.

My HUD went haywire and my chest felt like it was on fire.

**"Jason!"** Alex yelled out, he moved to help me but had to roll away for fear of getting hit by another one of the energy attacks. I groaned and quickly pushed myself up and into cover, my suits nanoweave already beginning the repair on the damage done.

'Don't let her hit you with that thing!' I shouted mentally 'Tore right through my armor and scrambled my HUD'

'Copy!' Alex replied back. 'Contact! Left side.' I spun aiming my pistols at the offending person to see a similarly dress girl wielding a sword of some kind. I fired twice the rounds pierced her chest and sent her to the ground.

'Why train them to defend you and not give them some kind of armor?' Alex thought over to me. 'he sure as hell armed them.' He popped up from his cover and fired two rounds, both whizzed harmlessly past the air the woman once occupied as she ducked behind her cover, before popping back out to return fire.

'How heavy a blast can you produce?' I asked as I dropped my head lower to keep from being hit.

'Nothing overpowering but with the weakened concrete I might be able to punch a small hole in it.' He replied already beginning to gather energy.

'How small is small?'

'Maybe a volleyball.'

'Good enough. When you're ready go for it.' Just as we finished our conversation the sound of the pistol fire ceased, signaling that she was reloading.

**"NOW!" **he shouted as he stood and launched his hand forward, a shockwave of energy at the wall, and true to his word a hole roughly the size of a volleyball broke apart, the rubble slamming into the armed woman's back eliciting a yelp of pain. I quickly stood and fired. Four rounds sailed through the air and into the woman's back. A soft thud echoed from the other side. The both of us stood from our cover and walked over to see the woman sprawled out on the floor, blood flowing from the four holes in her back. My visor scanned her vitals, I came up with the assurance that she was dead. I fought the bile that threatened to rise in my throat as I looked at her, then to the other woman, they weren't slavers, they were slaves, only doing what they had to survive. That was the cruel thing about this world, it forces you to kill, or be killed. Alex picked up her pistol and looked at the strange weapon, tearing my head away from the girl's corpse I looked at the weapon and the codex came up with one thing.

**Plasma Pistol**

**The plasma pistol is a powerful energy-based pistol, firing a superheated bolts of green plasma, it is able to punch through most critters and low-level types of armor with ease, when compared to the more commonly found and cheaper laser pistol.**

**The plasma pistol is a big step-up from the regular laser pistol, it deals more than twice the damage per shot, while remaining fairly accurate.**

**However, like the other plasma-based weapons, the plasma pistol suffers from common drawbacks, it consumes two cells with every shot, eating through ammunition at a much faster pace. Additionally upon use, the plasma pistol also suffers from a large green burst of plasma upon discharging the weapon which partially obstructs view, and the plasma bolts travel a very slow rate resulting in the need to lead the shot.**

**WARNING: Plasma weapons superheated state burns through nanoweave armor, and energy discharge disrupts suit systems. Approach hostile users with extreme caution.**

**"Well that's just peachy." **I deadpanned. Not a second later the sound of a hammer clicking echoed some few feet ahead of us. We both looked up to see a dark skinned man in a bright red suit, pointing a rather nasty looking revolver at us.

"Now…" he said his voice shaking, "don't you move, or I'll put one in you." I could practically _feel _Alex raise an eyebrow at the man. Within the span of five seconds the handgun was surrounded by a silver glow and yanked out of the slave master's hands and tossed across the room, leaving him defenseless. The slaver yelped at the sudden loss of his fire arm and would have made a run for had I not put two rounds in his legs.

**"So you must be Eulogy." **I said as we stepped closer to the downed man. **"So you would know where we can find some children. You would have picked them up a day or so ago."**

Eulogy let out a hoarse and mocking laugh. "Sorry boys but I just sold my whole batch. Their long gone by now. I got a hefty pay of four thousand caps for those punks."

I heard Alex snarl viciously. **"Well then I suppose we don't need anything more from you."** He reached up to his sword and pulled the weapon free. Eulogy got a panicked look and threw his hands up, speaking quickly, "Wait! The collars that the slaves wear, its more than just a deterrent to discourage them from leaving. Each collar has a chip that sends out a long range tracking frequency: it is from there we can pinpoint the exact location of the slaves!"

Alex and I looked at one another.

**"Just why would you have that in the collars?"** I asked as I crossed my arms.

"Insurance in case a slave escaped and their collar didn't go off. We also used it to track down slaves we had sold so we could retrieve them, and scavenge the 'owners' supplies." He pointed to a terminal a few feet away, a small safe sitting next to it. "That's where I can track the currently active set."

'Go check that out.' Alex said as he stepped closer to the slaver.

Without replying I moved to the terminal and my suit began a data mine on the small computer. Seconds later the screen flared to life and I saw what must have been a map of the wasteland. On the map there were names of towns and settlements but I was about six blips off to the southeast around an area that had been labeled **The Scrapyard**.

**"He speaks the truth."** I shouted back, already beginning to download the program onto my suit. After a quick four seconds the whole thing was on my HUD and had already set a way point. When I closed the program I noticed that there was the option to open the safe as well. With I grin I clicked on the option and the safe door swung wide open, revealing four bags filled to the brim with bottle caps. I chuckled and activated my suits storage function. Not a second later the four bags were digitized into my suits storage compartment. I turned and walked back to Alex, his blade pointed at Eulogy's neck, practically daring him to make a move.

**"You get everything?" **He asked, not looking away from the slaver.

**"Yep."** Then before Eulogy could say or react Alex thrust the blade forward, piecing the man's neck. He then roughly turned the blade in its place and jerked it out the side. Partially slicing the man's head off. Eulogy was dead before he hit the ground. Alex flicked the blood of his sword and sheathed it before looking at me.

"Lead the way."

ΩΩΩ

(Unknown, Northeast of Megaton)

I stepped out of the cave, the light blinding me as I did. I tripped slightly as I stepped out, causing me to stumble forward. I quickly righted myself and blinked a few times to clear my vision. As it slowly became clearer I found myself looking out over a great expanse of rock and dirt. Confusion spread through me as I looked over the rocky terrain.

'Why?' I asked myself, 'Why would you give it up for this?'

I coughed loudly and immediately winced, gripping my bruised ribs in an attempt to soothe the pain. A light beep caught my attention and I looked down at my wrist, seeing the familiar device I lifted it to my face, noting that I'd picked up a radio signal. I lowered my arm back to my side and looked over the rocks again. Steeling myself for what was to come.

'I will find you.' I promised myself, 'No matter what I will find you.'

It was then I took my first steps out into the destroyed earth. My search had begun.

ΩΩΩ

Unknown to ether party that day was the day that three legends were born.

The tale of the Lone Wanderer, The story of the Wraith, and The legend of the Titan.

* * *

**Hey people what is up!**

**Sorry for the long delay. I've had a tone of computer trouble to go through plus there was finals. **

**But now I'm back and ready to lay down some hurt.**

**Please remember to review! **

**Arokhsteel out!**


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: I own only my own OC's and lore**

"Quick move!"~ Person talking

'Bang'~ telepathic communication

**"Time to attack."**~ Synthesized voice

_"Three dog here./ Daddy!/ Report in."_~ Radio/Shade/Comm. Speech

**Critical Systems failure**~ Computer text/ Speech

Chapter 6: A New Threat

(Megaton)

I looked around me taking in the metal buildings, it was pretty impressive, the town wasn't that big, but it wasn't small ether. This took time, and a lot of metal to build.

"Well I'll be damned." A voice said, "Another newcomer." I turned to see a man in a leather duster and wide rimed hat walking towards me.

"Names Lucas Simms." He said, tipping his head slightly, "Town sheriff, and mayor when the need arises."

I looked around at what was essentially a hole in the ground with some buildings. I quickly decided that it would be best to stay on their good side, given that I was more or less in a kill box.

"Nice… town you got here, sheriff. It's a pleasure to meet you." I said, mustering up the friendliest smile I could, with that helpful dash of 'please don't kill me'. Lucas chuckled and shook his head.

"Friendly and well-mannered?" he asked, "I think we'll get along just fine. You treat my people nice, and your welcome to stay as long as you'd like." The tone he used wasn't threatening but the meaning came across nonetheless.

"Right. Message received." I said quickly. Lucas nodded and crossed his arms.

"Glad we understand each other. Now is there something I can help you with?" he gave me an expectant look.

I shuffled a little before replying, "I'm looking for my father. Middle-aged guy. Maybe you've seen him?"

Lucas shook his head. "Nope, sorry. There are a lot of fires to put out her in town. As such I don't have time to keep tabs on every visitor. But you're welcome to ask around." I sighed sadly.

'Yeah, cause that would have been too easy.' Looked back at the sheriff, "then what about this bomb that robot outside is talking about?" Lucas tensed, it was subtle but I read it easily, one of my better skills was my ability to read people.

"What about it?" he asked, his tone was tense, and I immediately picked my words carefully.

"Don't you think someone should disarm that thing?"

"I don't trust any of the locals to go tinkering with it. Besides, most don't realize it's still a threat." Lucas looked over his shoulder and back into the crater where the bomb sat. When he turned back a sour look had take up his face. "And hell, Cromwell and those crazies from the Church of the Atom, they worship the damn thing."

He gave me a calculating look, "And just recently a plot was discovered to set the thing off. Why you asking? You got the know-how to disarm it? For good?"

I rubbed the back of my head nervously, and gave a quick nod. I worked with Stanley while in the vault and picked up on a lot of stuff related to tech. There had been multiple schematics of old world weapons, the average nuke being one of them, and being that I have a photographic memory I could remember all the ins and outs of the device. I also was very handy when it came to the inner workings of things, because of this I eventually got the second job as the repair man. Sometimes the guards would come in and ask me to fix their guns. Lucas gave a look over before sighing. He motioned for me to follow him as he turned and walked down to the bomb. A few short steps and the two of us soon stood at the base of the atomic weapon. Lucas rapped the device with his knuckle.

"Disarm this thing and there'll be one hundred caps in it for you." He said as he leant against it.

I blinked owlishly and scratched my head in confusion. "Caps?" Amusement flashed through the sheriff's eyes and he chuckled lightly.

"You're really green aren't ya boy?" he asked. I could feel my cheeks heat up in embarrassment as I nodded. "It's what the people of the wasteland use as currency. And believe me you'll need it." I gave a quick nod and knelt next to the bomb, taking out my tools as I did so, taking a quick glance back at Lucas, who still stood over me, watching my every move.

"Gotta make sure you don't blow us up kiddo." He said, his tone was kidding but the look in his eyes told me otherwise.

"Fair enough." I unscrewed a panel and began my work. It was rather distressing, knowing that I my every move was being watched, and one suspicion might end up with a gun barrel pointed to my head. Despite this I persevered, my hands darting over the various wires.

"So." I began, "Since I'm helping you, maybe you could help me with my dad?"

Lucas smiled slightly, "Well, I do remember someone like that, going up to Moriarty's Salon." He thumbed towards one of the higher buildings. I nodded ant turned my attention back to my work. After a quick half hour later and I had safely disarmed the old world weapon. To my great surprise it was easier than I had originally anticipated. As a whole the bomb had the possibility to go off but a number of factors, the some hundred years of exposure to the elements had damaged the majority of the circuitry. While the bombs inside that triggered the atomic reaction were somehow in better condition than everything else, unless someone suddenly found a way to replace the sixty percent of all the damaged wiring, the bomb wouldn't be going off any time soon. I looked down at the numerous wires and boards at my feet, along with the several now harmless explosives and couldn't help but laugh a bit. I turned to Lucas and gave the man a thumb up.

"You disarmed it?"

I pushed myself upwards, giving a good stretch to work out the soreness of kneeling for such a long time.

"What you've got now is a really big and radioactive paperweight." The man smiled lightly and gave me a strong pat on the back.

"Nice job kid," he took out a medium sided pouch and began digging through it. After a second he came up with what I assumed was the hundred caps he had promised. I took the caps and stored them in my Pipboy. With a quick thank you I turned and began to look for a way up to the Salon, the sheriff had pointed out. When I found a viable path I began to walk upward, stopping only once I heard Lucas's voice call out to me.

"Never got you name kid."

I turned back to the sheriff and mentally nodded, I never had told him my name. I smiled sheepishly and ran a hand through my deep red hair, slightly embarrassed that I hadn't even introduced myself.

"Daniel"

ΩΩΩ

"How close to understanding this stuff are we?" The scientist looked up from his microscope, taking in the face of Vector, one of the top lieutenants. His hair was a short light brown, hanging in his face, partially obscuring his sickly yellow eyes. Those eyes darted over the table, taking in the various lab equipment that had been scattered over it. Then looking over at the some dozen screens, each displaying a different image.

"We are just beginning to understand the makeup of the compound, Bunker 02-429 has taken our findings and with more experimentation we might be able to stabilize it and then begin to apply for military application." The man turned back to the microscope, "If we are lucky we'll have a ready sample by the end of the month."

Vector turned to the man and raised an eyebrow, "If we're unlucky?" The man shrugged

"Middle of next month." Vector looked back over to the group of children that had been recently delivered. "The children will allow us to make more advances." The scientist turned his head back towards Vector. "I must admit. I am very fond of children." Vector looked back at the man, a cruel smile forming. "Their young bodies always react the most violently, giving way to more data. Plus their screams of pain and agony are quite soothing. Don't you agree?" Vector scrunched his nose before snorting.

"Keep your dick in your pants and get to work. I want that compound ready soon." He said, walking towards the exit. As he came to the door he turned his head just enough to glance at the man from the corner of his eye. "Remember. The Legion does not tolerate failure." For an instant the visible section of Vector's eye flashed a low purple light. The microscope the scientist had been working at briefly became entrapped in the same light before the device began to run, once solid metal now became liquid as the whole thing melted into a puddle.

"Do I make myself clear?" The scientist, looked at the puddle that was once his microscope and frowned slightly. It was his favorite.

With a sigh he spoke, "Yes sir."

"Another thing. The girl, have your scouts discovered her whereabouts?"

The scientist walked over to his table, taking out a spare microscope, "From what we can tell she's somewhere in the DC ruins. However due the force in which both the Super Mutants and Brotherhood of Steel in the area we are unable to investigate further. We must not be discovered by the Brotherhood, nor do we currently have the manpower to take the Super Mutants."

Vector sighed and shook his head," I might be able to fix that, I'm heading back to command. Maybe if what I have in mind is acceptable we will get our prized subject back."

With that Vector stepped out of the room, throwing up a hood as he did so.

ΩΩΩ

Cortez growled as she paced back and forth outside the bunker entrance. She was less than pleased at the fact that she and the captain had been told to stay outside while their nameless squad mate was allowed entry with the subjects. That had been thirty minutes ago and her already strained patients was at its end. Just then however the doors opened, giving way to the sight to the man in question as he twirled a knife in-between his fingers. Almost immediately she stomped up to him, stopping only a few feet away from the doors, so as not to be cut down by the bunker's automated defense turrets. She might have been a friendly but only 'authorized' individuals could enter the bunker. Any attempting to enter without that authorization would be cut down.

"What did he want?" She questioned, her stance giving way to her agitation. The scout shrugged uncaringly.

"Hell if I know. I delivered the subjects, and received orders." He stepped through the doors still twirling the knife in hand. When he made no move to continue Cortez pressed.

"And those orders?"

"Return to base." He said simply.

Cortez blinked once, "But what about the bridge entry, or more importantly it's passengers?"

He shrugged again," Guess they think that the trails gone cold." With that he walked past her. She moved to stop him but the look the captain gave her told her not to press the matter further. She grit her teeth in frustration but heeded the unspoken warning, and followed after him. She quickly passed him as he suddenly stopped in place, looking off to the side. She stopped a ways ahead of him and looked back, taking note on how his body was strangely tense.

"You coming or not?" she asked irritably. Unseen by her, rage flashed through his eyes before it was quickly snuffed out.

"Yeah, yeah." He said dismissively as he continued forward, "don't get your panties in a twist." Cortez scowled at the man but kept her anger in check.

'What was that?' Vector thought to himself, 'That feeling, like I was surrounded by a void.' He looked back at the direction he had felt the strange sensation. 'I'll need to bring word of this to command.'

ΩΩΩ

I tilted my head as I looked at the worn and beaten chain link fence that had barred the way into the scrapyard. On the fence was a surprisingly legible yellow sign. I looked over the blocky black lettering and read.

'Private property, trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.'

I glanced at Alex.

"You ever get the feeling you're not wanted?" I asked.

"Yeah…" he said, before turning to me, "You sure this is the place? Why would they put a base on a landmark that people know of?"

I shrugged, "Hide in plain sight? Who knows, the collar frequencies stop somewhere in this area. We just have to look for it." My vision flashed blue, signaling the activation of my visor's SV, a number of numbers flashed across my sight as the suit took in the environment, looking for any abnormalities. With this we would hopefully be able to find the entrance quickly. A sudden crash caught my attention as I darted around to see Alex had used a combination of raw strength and DE manipulation to flip the chassis of a car and various other small objects. I sighed as he continued on this path, roughly pushing and tossing various objects aside that were in his path. Maybe this wouldn't be so easy with Alex tossing scrap all over the place

* * *

**SV-Sharpshooter Vision**

**DE-Dark Energy**

**What up guys! Chapter Six is out and ready for some reading!**

**...**

**...**

**...**

**That's all I got.**

**Don't forget to review! **

**Arokhsteel out!**


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: I own only my own characters and lore! Nothing else!**

"Quick move!"~ Person talking

'Bang'~ telepathic communication

**"Time to attack."**~ Synthesized voice

_"Three dog here. / Daddy! / Report in."_~ Radio/Shade/Comm. Speech

**Critical Systems failure**~ Computer text/ Speech

Chapter 7: Assault and Discovery

(Alex, Scrapyard)

I looked over the expanse of scrap and junk that lay out before me, occasionally using a Push field to move a car chassis out of my way. Every time I did so I couldn't help but look at my progress with no small amount of amazement. I hadn't expected to progress as fast as I have, when Daegor was teaching me he would say how I was progressing astonishingly quickly. Two months he said that I had progressed to about half of a level one standard. Levels were like the grading when it came to Drakyllen. He himself was easily the most powerful as he ranked level seven. It was mostly attributed to the fact that he had lived and trained with his powers for several millennia. I chuckled slightly as I recalled the various moments when I would train with the old dragon, as I went along in my training I would ask him about his race. One particular thing he had told me was that his kind couldn't die from old age.

They could still be killed, but to this day not one of the Star dragon's had died from old age. Whenever I would ask how old he was, he would just get a funny look in his eye and chuckle. One of the things I learned right away was that the dark energy that was called on by each individual Drakyllen was a different color. While mine was silver, his was a burnt orange. One other thing was talents, two unique abilities each of us had, like he himself was able to build energy constructs out of his dark energy, and he could focus it into a beam attack. Then there was the councilor, who we were informed was also a Drakyllen, he was capable of short term Universal and Temporal displacement. In English it meant he could for the short time one minute displace himself from his current universe and into another, and as a side affect he temporarily stopped time in the area he appeared. And with great effort he could permanently place small nonorganic items into that universe, but once this is done that item is permanently anchored to that universe. He himself was a level three.

The thought of abilities like those made me giddy with excitement in the thought of acquiring them. Unfortunately Daegor kicked the daydreams right out of my head as he said it had taken himself twenty years to unlock his abilities, and the councilor himself had only just unlocked his two years before he had grabbed me and Jason. So the likelihood of me unlocking mine while my abilities were just beginning to come about was slim to none. But then again I had progressed quickly, here I was with only three months of training yet I was probably up to level one. If I was perfectly honest with myself this both excited me and scared me. As I progressed in my abilities faster than anyone had I began to wonder why that was.

I mean the only reason I had managed to attain these powers was because of the Red-or was it Blue now-Marker that sent some kind of mental wave that unlocked the power and lent me access to its own dark energy field. I wasn't even 'natural' when it came to terms with my powers. I was an accident. Was this power increase going to burn my mind out? Will my body not be able to handle the stress of the energy and eventually just give out? Don't even get me started on the nanites that was swimming through my bloodstream, how would they fit into this? They made my body stronger than it could have ever become, but what was the price?

I shook my head. Having thoughts like those would drive me crazy, and they weren't helping me find my objective. I refocused on finding the bunker entrance. Then I noticed it: the earth didn't sound right. Normally when it walked over the dust and rock I was greeted with the muted thud of my boots hitting rock. What I heard this time was a solid clunk. I was very familiar with this sound, my boots made it every time I took a step back on the Ishimura. I looked down at my feet. It looked like dirt, but there was no doubt in my mind that I had just stepped on some particularly thick metal.

'Jason, come here, I think I found the entrance.'

'Where are you?' I pulled out my pistol and fired once in the air. 'You do know that's illegal right?'

I shrugged, more out of habit than anything else, 'Something tells me I don't have to worry about the cops.' Jason mentally sighed and said he would be there soon. About a minute later he was looking over the ground with his SV. After a moment he glance back at me and gave a quick nod. We'd found the enemy base entrance. Now we just needed to figure out how to open it.

"What are we looking at?" I asked.

"Based on my scans, it's the equivalent of a basement door, it has very little armor on it. Well, in relative to our weapons that is. It seems that they weren't expecting the base to be found. Even if it was it looks like they only compensated for standard raider weaponry." Jason tapped the side of his visor a few times. "Can't get much more of a reading than that. Some kind of energy field seems to be projecting two inches off the ground and around the entrance. I'm pretty sure that it isn't meant to block the suits systems, so it must be something else."

I knelt and placed a hand on the disguised entrance. I pulled my sword out, triggering it's cutting field as I did so.

"Let's see what is behind do number one!" I grunted as I forced the blade downwards, it felt like a hit a barrier just two inches away from the metal. But the resistance was only momentary and my blade continued on its path not a second later. Not wasting a second I began to cut into the metal. It wasn't as easy as cutting through the metal like I would have anticipated. When I used the blade to cut through a Super Mutant I felt resistance, like a knife through butter. When I cut through that slaver Eulogy the resistance was like that of a knife through water. I chalked this up to the difference in the bodies of the human and the Mutant. With this metal however it was like trying to cut through rock. It was most likely that the metal itself was much denser than those of the Mutant and human.

Still in a quick minute I cut a sizeable half corner off the metal, and using equal partsDark energyand muscle I bent the piece out of the way just enough that we could slip inside. But this also allowed the two of us to here the Klaxon going off from inside the bunker. We quickly descended down a ramp and were greeted to the sight of a six feet high and eight feet wide door. Well, door might not be the best word to describe it would probably be gate, what with the bulk of it and the two turrets hanging at either corner.

Speaking of which said turrets were staring the two of down, a low whine beginning to fill the air. In a quick movement I threw my arm up, like I would if I held a shield and a barrier of silver energy suddenly appeared in front of us. It was one of my better decisions as not a second after I did so both turrets fired a single round of pale blue energy at my makeshift field. I felt a pulse from the impact of the first round on my shield, as well as the shockwave that came when it shattered on contact. The round dispersed but the second followed right after and hit me dead center in the chest. Pain ripped itself upwards through my torso as I was launched onto my back.

**Mark III Energy Pulse detected. **I grunted slightly as I made out the words of the suit's computer.** Recommend caution**.

"No shit Sherlock." I growled as I pushed myself upwards. I glanced up to see Jason roll to his right. Firing off two shots at one of the turrets. Two loud thunks, and the mechanized gun's sudden jerk to the left, was the only evidence he had hit the thing.

'Anti-matter didn't do much.' Jason thought as he dodged an energy pulse. I grunted as I emptied a whole clip from my pistol into one of the turrets. Predictably the bullets that did manage to hit didn't even tickle it. I growled as I threw up a barrier stronger than the last, I prayed it would be strong enough as the turret fired an energy round right at me. The impact was just as heavy but instead of shattering outright the barrier it cracked like glass and _then_ shattered. Not much, but it was still an improvement. I heard Jason fire his rifle three more times, and a series of thunks to follow.

'Think the MDB would work' I asked as I drew the blade.

'You have super strength, not super reach.'

'No but I can throw it.' I dove backwards, just avoiding the energy pulse that would have hit. I initiated a throw, jerking one of the turrets to the side, just as it finished charging, thus forcing it to shoot the wall

'You couldn't hit the side of a barn door with a gun, what makes you think you can hit a turret with a sword by throwing it?' I scoffed and coated the blade in DE, fingering the trigger and threw the blade like a javelin, using the energy to keep it on course. I smirked in victory when the blade impaled the turret at the base and the machine powered down. From my guess I'd managed to hit the thing's battery. I refocused on the remaining turret.

**"Current stratagem – insufficient"** I balked at the robotic voice, and I could feel Jason's dread on top of my own.

'Please don't be what I think it is.'

**"Rapid pulse active."**

"Oh hell no bitch!" Jason said, bringing his rifle to bear. He was just about to pull the trigger when several smaller globs of energy slammed into his chest. He yelled out in pain as he was knocked backwards onto his back, dropping his rifle in the process. Before I could make a move to help my friend the gun pointed its barrel at me. As I stood there I felt something, I felt… empty. Not like an emotional emptiness, but I literally felt empty, like there was this gaping hole somewhere in my being that demanded to be filled, then the gun fired. What happened next wasn't conscious thought, it wasn't reflex, it was instinct. I threw my arms up and crossed them over my chest, pulling at the feeling. Then a small field of energy came into being in front of me, but instead of the usual silver energy, what came into existence had no color whatsoever, it was transparent, looking through it was like looking through glass, and it was as thin as a sheet of paper. I began to dread the inevitable impact as the turret fired off a three energy blasts at me. I tensed as time seemed to slow and the pale blue bolts sailed to my inadequate protection. I cringed as the first of the three made contact, preparing for the inevitable impact. However to my shock the bolt seemed to be sucked into the energy, and then it was expelled out toward me in a stream of silver energy. Before I could express my shock the other two made contact only for a similar result to take place.

I blinked as the silver energy not unlike my dark energy. I looked back at the turret which had paused in its firing. After another second it began an all out barrage. Dozens of bolts hit the transparent energy, and not one of them made a difference. Soon the gun had stopped firing, presumably because it had finally gotten that what it was doing wasn't helping. I looked at the sea of silver that now circled me. Using my Drakyllen abilities I reached out to the energy and pulled. Almost instantly the energy rushed towards me. When the energy made contact I felt it enter me, my body absorbing it. In that moment the emptiness disappeared and I felt… great. Better than I had at any time in my whole life. I stood straight, feeling the maelstrom of power that now swirled inside me. I threw my hand out, firing a wave of dark energy at the turret. When it hit it obliterated the gun. I laughed heartily as I turned to Jason.

"What the hell was that?" he asked as he pushed himself up, careful not to agitate his injury. The suit however had already repaired the damage done to itself and was currently working on him if his face that slowly showed relief was anything to go by. I glanced down at my own chest to see the damage done was fixed and the nanites inside me had already fixed me up.

"I think I discovered a new ability. The ability to convert some form of energy into dark energy and absorb it, making myself more powerful" Jason gathered up his sniper rifle and replaced the clip.

"Think you're powerful enough to break down that door?" I shrugged, idly holding my hand out and focusing. My sword which had been lodged in the second turret was suddenly ripped out of its resting place and brought into my hand. I sheathed the blade and turned.

"Let's find out." I focused a chunk of the new energy into my hand, as the energy gathered I condensed it, attempting to make a powerful blast to break down the door. When I was satisfied I prepared to launch the blast forward, the feeling left me, and I felt a light impact in my hand. When I looked at it I found that in place of the dark energy that I had taken up there was a perfectly round silver crystal ball, about the size of a baseball. I blinked in surprise as I looked at the ball. I could turn dark energy into solid crystal? I sent a pulse of dark energy to the ball experimentally, and was greeted to an explosion of color from inside the crystal. Just then the large door began to open and we both tensed. When the door was fully opened we were greeted with half a dozen men in pitch black armor, an bright red outline of a sun in the center of their chest piece, all of them armed with assault rifles. Pointed right at us.

"Surrender! Put your hands above your heads NOW!" One of them yelled, a series of clicks signaled that they had taken the safeties off.

"What the hell is in his hand!" another yelled. Confused I looked down to see that the crystal was now a glowing beacon of silver light. I got the feeling something that something bad was about to happen so I threw the glowing ball at one of the soldiers with all my might. Like a bullet the ball sailed through the air and smashed into his head with a sickening crack that couldn't be anything but the sound of his skull cracking. Not a second later the crystal exploded outwards. There was no sound as the light ripped through the air, only the shockwave that washed over us, pushing Jason back a few feet but not doing much to myself. I turned my head quickly, so as to shield my eyes from the brightness of the blast, I could see Jason doing the same just a few feet away from me. When the light died down and we looked back, we saw the soldiers. Or at the very least what remained of them.

The ball had exploded like a grenade unleashing all the dark energy that had composed the crystal, the result was that it had disintegrated two of the closest due to how close they were to the blast, the others however were horribly burned and crushed beyond recognition.

"Dark energy grenade?" Jason asked. "Sweet." He stepped to and over the corpses of the soldiers. "Come on." He turned to me. "Let's save the kids and kick some ass." I smirked as power pulsated through my being.

"Gladly."

ΩΩΩ

(Gateway station

The Councilor stood unusually rigid, his face set in a perpetual scowl as he looked at the screen displaying Alex and Jason as they began to fight the enemy forces. Now he had a chance to finally study what they were up against. He immediately could tell that those they were fighting were little more than basic infantry, and where they were wasn't the main base. Too few guards. Then there was his other point of concern: Alex. He looked at the boy as he brought up a shield to block the rifle rounds directed at him before launching it forward. His abilities were progressing quickly. Too quickly. When he had gained his own abilities it had taken him years to gain an understanding of his abilities, he had gained his abilities when he was ten. Now here he was in his sixties, he only just gotten into his two talents. But Alex, only at sixteen (Technically), and he already had a certain kind of mastery over his gift that the Councilor himself, couldn't begin to hope he had at his age. Then his talents, He had already unlocked them, and if how easily he was creating marble sized crystal balls and using them as flash bangs.

"How is that possible?" The human turned to the star dragon behind him with a critical white eye. Daegor had chosen that he would watch the two and their progress today, as he apparently had no duties to fulfill. The dragon himself was shocked by the rapid increase in his students power. Even he who had taken to his Drakyllen abilities like a fish to water hadn't progressed this quickly.

"I don't know." The Councilor said as he turned back to the screen. His voice could have frozen a lake solid. It could be said that he hated being uniformed but it would have been a lie. He absolutely loathed being uninformed with every fiber of his being, he'd much rather gargle a mixture of oil and acid than be left in the dark about something. It should have been impossible for him to progress this far, he had been aware that the boy had made it through his training in leaps and bounds, but this… this couldn't be right.

"My friend." Daegor said slowly, "You found these two in the Alpha Vera Universe correct? Could this be a result of their nativity to it? Pushing the most obvious aside, I've never seen anyone adjust to the mental imprints so easily." The Councilor turned to the screen and with a swipe of his hand, replaced the image with that of what looked to be a cluster of stars, all of them connected by a network of ethereal lines. The image focused and zoomed on one of the stars, this continued until instead of a star it looked to be a collection of billions upon billions of galaxies.

"Daegor. Were you not there some Eight centuries ago when this universe was discovered, and have thus been with the Gatekeepers through the whole ordeal, we may have discovered other universes over that time but this one remains the very first discovered." The councilor turned fully to face the large alien being. "How is it that this universe has drawn so many to it?" he walked around the image trying to take in every detail he could.

Daegor nodded. "It is suspect. First to be discovered, then it produces a Drakyllen who has progressed with incredible speed, allowed the boys to grow accustomed to their mental imprints in record time, and now even you seem drawn to it." The councilor tensed ever so slightly for an instant before his body relaxed. But even so, the star dragon saw and took notice.

"You are not alone in that respect my friend. It has a pull that I cannot explain. We will have to watch and see how this plays out. For now at least." The Councilor grunted and turned back as the hologram switched back to the boys.

ΩΩΩ

(Alex, Bunker)

I dove to the side, avoiding a flurry of bullets and turned, throwing my hand out in an arc, sending out a shockwave. The blast knocking the soldiers off their feet and into the wall behind them. I assumed that I had knocked them unconscious from how they didn't get back up. Had to give these guys credit, they were about as dangerous as the average infantry unit in any RTS, but they were persistent. They had fought us for every inch of the bunker, and it had mostly been a losing battle for them, but they never gave up. Probably because they didn't have anywhere else to go if they failed. Three loud bangs echoed behind me, signaling that Jason had taken out three more. I looked over my shoulder and corrected myself. One of them just didn't want to die so it had taken three shots to finish him off. From the looks of it he had gotten lucky and the first two had been blocked by his armor, the third however he wasn't as lucky since the round had torn through his skull and painted his brain all along the wall. A quick inspection of the area showed that we had defeated the last of them, it was just as well, they were starting to get annoying. I turned forward, looking at the door in front of us. I charged a push and launched it at the obstruction. When the blast hit it severely bent the door out of shape, but it still held strong. I frowned, I could feel the power in me, but it had diminished, I had been using more power than I had originally thought. Still I should have enough for this. I charged one final push and fired it. I smirked in victory when it blasted the door out of place. The triumph however didn't last long as the emptiness that I had felt before hit me with all the force of a freight train. I doubled over, gasping for air as the feeling began to overwhelm me.

"Alex!" Jason yelled in alarm, I could hear him begin to take steps towards me but was stopped when a transparent dome enveloped me. The emptiness, it was overwhelming. I needed something to be rid of it. With that one thought the energy collapsed inward and slammed into me, bypassing my armor completely. I screamed in total agony as I felt every nerve in my body scream out in unison.

I grit my teeth as the pain continued to bore into me, but then I saw something rise out from my armor. A wisp of silver energy. It took me a second for my pain addled mind to comprehend what was happening, but when it came to me my blood turned to ice. The when I absorbed the dark energy initially it had blocked out the emptiness, but now that it was gone, I had subconsciously called on my new ability to convert more energy into dark energy. But as it seemed I couldn't just convert energy, I could convert matter as well. I had called on my ability to convert the nearest mass into dark energy, and that was me. I was converting my own mass into dark energy. Alarm ripped though me like a bullet. I focused, concentrated with all my might, ordering- no demanding the energy to stop. For a second the pain continued before the energy exploded outward and dissipated into nothingness. When the pain finally died down, I could feel the emptiness, not as strong as it was before, but it was there, like a serpent, lying in wait, for the perfect moment to strike. With some effort I pushed the feeling to the back of my mind. I couldn't focus on that now, I needed to focus on the mission.

"Dude what the hell was that?!" Jason exclaimed

I winced, "I'll tell you later." I could feel Jason's concern and annoyance flow through the link. "We need to get the brats. Come on." I pushed myself up and towards the door, not giving Jason the time to answer. His Annoyance grew but I could feel him reel it in.

"Fine but you better deliver." I gave a stiff nod and together we stepped in thought the door. In the room was dozens of video screens, each showing various things. A desk with a holographic interface at the far side of the room. Standing next to the desk was a man in buttoned up white lab coat, his hands and feet covered by black gloves and boots. His skin was pale, almost as white as his coat, his long hair pitch black, eyes cruel and yellow.

"About time you two got here." He said smoothly, "I had thought you were just going to stand out there and keep me waiting." I wretched slightly, His skin, hair, eyes and now voice, were all vividly familiar.

'Guy could pass as Orochimaru's long lost brother.'

"Ku ku ku ku." He laughed. "Such amusing thoughts Mr. Miles. I think I shall enjoy experimenting on you and Mr. Vickers. " My blood turned to liquid nitrogen. Jason's alarm smashed into my own like a car crash. Alexander Miles. Jason Vickers. Our names.

'How in the hell does he know our names!?' Jason screamed mentally. The man smirked.

"Oh come now my boy." He chided mockingly, "It should be quite obvious how I know your names." He tapped his head.

"Telepathy." I whispered. His mocking smirk grew.

"Very good." His tone was really starting to piss me off, but I bit back my anger. I had no idea how strong he was with his ability. "I suppose you may call me Orochimaru, as you have no need to know my name." a sadistic gleam flashed through his cruel yellow eyes. "I do hate to cut this conversation short but you have gotten too far." I didn't like the sound of that at all. I move for my sword but an invisible force slammed into me and I faded into unconsciousness.

ΩΩΩ

(Alex, Unknown Area)

Alex groaned as he sat upward. He opened his eyes taking in where he stood. He found himself in a strange jungle, trees bent and looped in strange patterns and shapes. The grass was a deep red, the tree trunks a deep purple, their leaves a soft pink, the sky was emerald green with navy blue clouds.

"Where the hell am I. And why do I feel like hitting Jason?"

ΩΩΩ

(Jason, Unknown Area)

Jason jumped up, landing roughly on his knees. He looked around frantically only to find himself in the desert. Except the sand was a dark brown, a dust devil some ways away was colored a bright orange, the sky was hot pink, and purple clouds soared overhead. The brown haired man scratched his head and spoke.

"Either I'm in some other universe, or high on some good LSD." He chuckled lightly but shivered right after. "Yep Alex wants to hit me." He sighed and dusted off his armored legs. "So where am I?"

ΩΩΩ

"I can answer that."

Alex &Jason spun around in their separate locations to see Orochimaru standing a ways ahead of them.

"This is your mind." The pale man said, smirking cruelly, "And I shall flay you alive!" He dashed forward with inhuman speed. The two readied themselves, this was a new kind of fight. One they couldn't afford to lose.

* * *

**Holy Crap! Alex and Jason are in a new kind of fight with this Orochimaru look a like. **

**Can they defeat this new and dangerous enemy? **

**Lets find out.**

**Remember to review!**

**Arokhsteel has left the building. **


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: I own only my Characters and lore**

"Quick move!"~ Person talking

'Bang'~ telepathic communication

**"Time to attack."**~ Synthesized voice

_"Three dog here. / Daddy! / Report in."_~ Radio/Shade/Comm. Speech

**Critical Systems failure**~ Computer text/ Speech

Chapter 8: Fight on

(Alex's Mindscape)

I threw up my arms, blocking the first blow Orochimaru launched at me but couldn't move fast enough and took a brutal kick to the ribs. I felt the air fly from my lungs as a third hit smashed into my sternum. I stumbled backwards, griping my aching torso and glared at the man as he stood still. That infuriating smirk still plastered on his face. I growled and began to reach out for dark energy only to come up flat. I couldn't feel any dark energy around me, even the emptiness was absent. I glanced down at myself and gave a quick inspection. From what I could tell he hadn't done much more than surface damage but the because of my armor's absence I had taken the entire assault. The stark white t-shirt and black pants I was currently wearing didn't provide much protection. So I was powerless and didn't have any weapons, just my fists and my wit. I stood tall, ignoring the ache in my chest, and settled into a combat stance.

'You there man?' I thought

'Now's not the best of times!' he called back, 'This freak isn't letting up'

'Try to survive. I'll help if I can' I burst forward, throwing a quick punch. The pale man blocked the hit and then flipped over me when I tried to take a swipe at his legs. I spun and attacked again only for a wall of earth to rise up and block my fist. The hard rock cracked but held strong, thus protecting the telepath from my attack.

'Careful he can manipulate the environment!'

'Got it!'

I jumped over the damaged defense and prepared to throw another punch only to stop when I realized he wasn't there. I landed heavily on the ground and examined the strange forest for his location.

"Going crazy already?" I spun throwing a wide kick at the sound of the voice. I could see him jump out of way just in time for my leg to make contact with the already damaged wall and reduce it to rubble. I glared at the man as he landed a few yards away from me.

"The hell do you mean?" I growled

"The thoughts. I can hear them you know." He placed his hands behind his back. "Do you normally state the obvious in your head or is it just now."

'He didn't mention you.' Confusion and annoyance flashed through the pale doctor's eyes.

"Who didn't I mention? Your imaginary friend?" The comment was meant to annoy me but I just smirked.

'He can't hear you.' I laughed mentally

'He can't hear you either.' Jason laughed right back.

"WHO ARE YOU TALKING TOO!?" Orochimaru roared. I scoffed and charged forward, catching him by surprise and managed to land a solid blow to his stomach. The man gasped for air as he was launched back a few feet.

"That's for me to know, and for you to find out."

ΩΩΩ

(Daniel, Minefield)

"How do I get myself into these messes?" Daniel asked himself as he pressed his back against the crumbling wall of a ruined building, sniper rifle rounds flying past his cover.

"You'll never take me!" the shooter yelled as he continued fire. The red head sighed as he recalled the events that had led him up to this point. Moriarty did know where his dad had gone but the old coot refused to give him the information for anything less than a hundred caps, and that was all the money he had at the moment. It was tempting to just give the bar owner the bottle caps and find his dad but he got the sinking feeling that finding his dad wouldn't be as simple as paying some old coot to tell him where he went. Plus there was the fact that he had asked around the small town about the wasteland. If half of what the teen had heard was true then he would need to gain some experience. Luckily for him (or unluckily depending on your point of view) a woman in the town by the name of Moira Brown had asked for his help in writing a book for her, she would do the writing all she needed was someone to do the research, which apparently translated into shooting people. She was kind of… off but he liked her, at least she hadn't given him a suspicious glance every time he passed her by. First she had him go scavenge for supplies and he managed to get some good medical supplies and food that could last him a while. Then she wanted him to contract radiation poisoning. He let out a frustrated sigh, he didn't know what in had possessed him to agree to get radiation poisoning, much less the six hundred rads he had gotten. But out of it all he did learn from Moira's somewhat unorthodox methods on how to treat radiation poisoning, that and this mutation that made him heal faster when irradiated. But now here he was, getting shot at by some senile old man with a sniper rifle.

He sighed and pulled out a hunting rifle, it had more range and damage than his 10mm pistol, but was in far worse condition, he had repaired what he could but due to his lack of proper parts it wasn't much, but it was better than total crap. He readied the rifle and peaked around the corner of his cover, only to duck back as a rifle round obliterated where his face had been.

"I'll get you eventually! You can't hide forever!" Daniel groaned as he tried to assess a way out of the situation that didn't end up killing him. The old man was clearly paranoid, he had started attacking the vault dweller the second he had seen him. He didn't seem all that stable either. The red head also observed that the old man was twitchy, his shots, while accurate were wild and had a wide spread. He looked off to his left and saw that the building he was taking cover behind gave him a cover up to an alleyway that would give him a bit of the element of surprise. Taking a breath he walked down to the alley, being as quiet as he could and peaked around the corner when he did.

He could see the old man's vantage point which had been a crumpled building, and on the top floor where the old man had been he found that a wall blocked the view of his current position from him. Daniel quickly moved closer to the building making sure to stay out of view. While hugging the wall he quickly and quietly ascended the stairs. When he came to the top floor there was the old man, rifle at the ready scanning the field.

"Damn raiders. I'll get'm, they won't kill me oh no. I'll get you before you get me." Taking in a breath to steady himself and leveled his rifle at the man's head. His finger twitched and he fired. Only to jerk his rifle abruptly downward, hitting the man square in his shoulder. The old man cried out in pain as he jerked forward. Daniel pulled the bolt on his hunting rifle back and slammed it back home as the .32 shell popped out of the chamber. The man started to turn but Daniel was faster and fired off a shot in the man's knee joint. The limb buckled from the impact and the sniper crumpled backwards, his rifle skidding out of his hand and at Daniel's feet. The vault dweller kept his eyes trained on the old man as he cursed and swore up a storm that could make a sailor blush. Daniel lowered his gun slightly and looked at the man as his life slowly flowed out of him and began to stain the concrete. The two bullet wounds were fatal if the bleeding didn't get stopped soon, and even then, the one round that had hit his leg just about crippled it. It'd be a miracle if they guy could walk at all again. Didn't look like he had much in the way of food or water either. Give it three days and he'd be dead from dehydration, which is if the infection he most certainly gotten didn't kill him in the hour. If he was lucky he had half the day. Daniel sighed and leveled his rifle at the man's skull. A defiant scowl flashed on his face before a twitch of the vault dweller's finger ended his existence.

Daniel bit back on the bile that yearned to rush up and out his mouth. In his escape from the vault he had to fight the multiple guards that the overseer had sent after him, but he hadn't killed them, hell he never even took the gun Amada had offered him in the beginning, instead he told her to keep it and favored using a bat from his childhood. Using this, the most he had given the guards was a mild concussion. But then when Amada had killed officer Mac, and then given him the gun, had seen that broken and horrified look on her face. He had been terrified of it. But then when he had killed the raiders in the supermart, he had instantly felt what had gripped Amada when he saw her afterward. Now as he looked down at the dead man, a bloody section of his face missing from his head he felt that same feeling crawling up his spine.

Daniel took in a breath and released it; he holstered his rifle and took the man's sniper, looking over the weapon for a moment before he deemed it to be in reasonable condition. He stored the weapon in his Pipboy and all the ammo he found for it, turning he began to walk, never once looking back at the corpse that he had left of the man.

As he walked he reveled in the feeling that now gripped his heart. The sickness that now coursed through his veins, he would revel in it, allow it to encompass him. It was this revulsion with his actions, with himself that would keep him human. He refused to allow the wasteland to turn him into just another one of the monsters and killers that roamed it. From that moment on he would roam the wastes alone, nothing and no one at his side but this feeling to remind him of the deaths he had caused.

ΩΩΩ

(Jason's Mindscape)

I ducked under one of Orochimaru's brutal kicks, throwing myself into a roll. I quickly pushed myself upwards, throwing the hardest punch I could only to collide with a wall of sand. With a growl I ducked to the side, avoiding a punch the pale doctor launched at me. I scowled at my current predicament; he was a telepath and well versed in the realm of the mind, much more than Alex and I. I grunted as a heavy foot launched me across the barren landscape. Pain exploded through my body as I crashed across the sand. I managed to twist so that I landed on my feet, and after a short distance of skidding, I managed to stop my movement. I ground my teeth in frustration, he was fast, impossibly fast. If it weren't for my reflex's he would have hit me more times than I could count by now. And if he was like this here, then Alex must have been taking a beating, it was really fortunate punching him was like punching a brick wall.

I scowled as I looked for Orochimaru as he had disappeared yet again from sight. If I just had my guns I could fight back properly. I snarled and punched the sand, only to recoil in pain when I hit something solid. Curious of what I could have possibly hit, I dug into the sand and found what I had hit. I blinked in surprise when I came back up with a sniper rifle. But not just any rifle, _my_ anti-matter rifle. Before I could even begin to question its appearance in this strange place, klaxons suddenly blared out in my head. I ducked to the side, brining the rifle to bare and unleashing the clip into the pale doctor. A smirk made it across my face as every round hit launching him back. He hit the brown sand hard but rolled onto his feet, looking largely unharmed by the assault. I would have scowled but the slight look of confusion on his face stopped me. But there was something else mixed in. Wonder? Panic? What was that? Just as I continued looking at the doctor I caught something out of my peripheral vision. A pale fist coming towards my face. I reacted just in time to dodge the attack. I ducked under the blow and turned only to see a transparent Orochimaru fade out of existence.

'The hell?' Suddenly a foot collided with my jaw launching me across the landscape once again. "Damn it!" I shouted as I attempted to stop my flight. I got luck, or unlucky on how you look at it, and hit a particularly large sand dune, while it hurt, it did stop my movement. I growled as I pulled myself out of the brown sand, my hand grasping onto something as it came out. When I looked to see what it was I had grabbed I was mildly shocked to see a magazine for my rifle.

'That was convenient.' I thought as I checked for ammo. Finding the clip full I replaced it into my rifle.

'The hell did you find that!?' I jumped slightly at Alex's voice.

'Find what?' I asked as I looked over the sand dunes for any sign of the mad scientist

'The hell do you think? The rifle!' I blinked in surprise.

'How did you know I have a rifle?'

'Look to your left' While I was confused on what he expected me to see I complied. I blinked once, twice, three times until I was sure of what I was seeing. When my vision didn't dispel the sight I came to terms that I was looking at a transparent Alex as he sat deep red grass, and his back to a toppled over purple tree trunk.

'The hell is this?' I thought as I reached over in an attempt to make contact with the transparent image. Alex mirrored my movements, however just as we made contact _two_ Orochimaru's burst out of the ground, one as solid as the rifle in my hands, the other a wisp of transparent smoke. The two of us jerked in surprise, however this caused the very tips of our fingers to touch. It couldn't have lasted longer than a few milliseconds, but that was apparently all that was need as the world erupted in a flash of light. For the longest time all I could see was the white light that had blinded me, but after some time it faded out into blackness. Literally the light faded into blackness, there was absolutely nothing around me, the sky, and the clouds, both were replaced by a pitch black background. I glanced downward, and was relieved to see I was actually standing on something, I noted that it very closely resembled concrete, but who knows what it actually was. I did a quick visual look over to see that my rifle was absent from this strange world.

'Wonderful.' I thought irritably, 'I get my gun back for two seconds only to have it taken away.

"What the hell was that?" I spun around to see a solid Alex pushing himself up off the ground.

"Hell if I know." I replied as I made my way over to him.

"How the hell did you do that?" We both sprung into combat stances, turning to the sound of the voice. Orochimaru could be seen some ways away, a scowl set in his previously smirking face. Cruel yellow eyes that once held nothing but mockery were now filled with slight panic. The pale man snarled at us as he hunched over.

"I don't know how the two of you did so, but you merged you mindscapes together." He flashed his teeth at us. "I underestimated the two of you. I won't do that again." I blinked once. Only once and suddenly both Alex and I were hurtling through the air. I cried out in pain as I skid across the ground, each landing a reminder of the hard ground under us. It felt like an eternity before the two of us lost our inertia and came to a stop. As I pushed myself upwards my heart jumped in my chest. The sudden muscle contraction forced blood up and out my mouth, staining the gray ground under me.

"Son of a bitch…" I heard Alex groan. "When the hell could he hit like that?" I pushed myself to a kneeling position.

"Shut up and die!" I spun in the direction of the voice only to get a harsh kick to the face that sent me across the landscape again. I could hear Alex call out to me as I flew away from him, but I couldn't bring myself to answer, nor could I even cry out in pain. The force should have shattered my bones on impact but somehow they held. I wasn't sure if I was to take that as a blessing or a curse. Ever so slowly I came to a stop, and somehow summoned the strength to push myself upwards, just in time to see Alex launched off in his own separate direction. With no small amount of effort or pain I forced myself to stand. I spat out some of the excess blood that remained in my mouth, trying to rid it of the coppery taste. My eyes searched the landscape, looking for any sign of Orochimaru, only to come up with nothing.

"Looking for me?" Every muscle in my body locked up, the guy wasn't running, he was _teleporting_, there was no way someone of his stature could move this fast. The kidney punch didn't send me flying like the others but that wasn't to say that it hurt any less. My legs buckled under me, the air ripped from my lungs. I just barely caught myself before hitting the ground.  
"I will break you in two." The doctor said as he kicked me in my side.

"Get the hell away from him!" This time Orochimaru didn't have a chance to react before Alex's fist was buried in his gut. "Let's see ya grit those teeth ya damn freak!" True to his word Alex's fist slammed into the doctor's jaw and sent him reeling. Not a second later Alex grabbed a hold of my shoulder and pulled me upwards, allowing me ot lean on his shoulder for support.

"Thanks for the help Kamina." I said sarcastically, trying to mask my pain.

"You think you can still fight after that?" I shook my head.

"I'm surprisingly good. But that won't matter if we can't find a way to beat him."

" 'When' " Alex growled. "When we find a way to beat him."

"It won't be an easy fight. I don't know about you but up until this point I was only just keeping up with him before this. Now he seems to have doubled in power."

"That just means we have to be twice as carful."

With a groan I pushed off of Alex and onto my own feet. This was going to be a real painful experience. I could just tell.


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: I own only my Lore and OCs**

"Quick move!"~ Person talking

'Bang'~ telepathic communication

**"Time to attack."**~ Synthesized voice

_"Three dog here. / Daddy! / Report in."_~ Radio/Shade/Comm. Speech

**Critical Systems failure**~ Computer text/ Speech

Chapter 9: A Truth Realized

(Mindscape)

Jason folded backwards, Orochimaru's leg slicing through the air he had previously occupied. Before he could right himself however, Orochimaru followed through with the kick, spinning three-hundred sixty degrees, and when he came back around his leg was raised high over his head, ready to bring his heel back down on Jason's exposed body.

"No you don't!" Orochimaru, using the one leg he stood upon propelled himself high into the air, allowing Alex's own foot to impact empty air as the mad doctor flipped in air, a smirk plastered on his face. The doctor landed with a low thud behind the Drakyllen and thrust an open palm towards his unguarded back. Alex could only turn just enough so that the blow struck his side instead of his spine as the pale doctor had originally intended, but it made little change as it sent the man spinning to the floor. Jason couldn't right himself quickly enough and was forced to the floor with a grunt as his friend fell into him.

"Damn it!" he cursed, rolling off to the side to avoid a heel stomp to the chest. Alex pushed himself upwards and with his enhanced strength and a great deal of control, he held his body parallel to the gray floor and pivoted. As a result he began to spin, and in a quick transition was bringing his feet around in a helicopter motion hopping to hit the telepathic doctor. Orochimaru moved to dodge but given the speed of which Alex had moved and his proximity to the Drakyllen it was impossible for him to react quickly enough to dodge the attack entirely. Alex's first blow grazed the doctor's chest, eliciting an annoyed hiss, the second blow clipped the doctor just as he escaped Alex's reach. The doctor backed up, allowing the Gatekeeper to spin two more times before he pushed off the ground and land on his feet.

"How the hell is he doing this?" Jason hissed next to him, his breath coming out in haggard pants. "The guy obviously isn't athletic, so how the hell is he doing it?"

Alex snarled, "Hell if I know. But something in this situation is familiar. It's like were forgetting something."

_"Daddy!"_ Alex and Jason stiffened and spun around, taking in the small shadowed form that stood not four feet behind them.

"Angel?" Alex asked frantically, his eyes widening in alarm. 'Of all the times to appear why would it be now!?' He thought frantically. "Angel run! Get out of-"but it was too late as Orochimaru ripped past Alex and Jason, shoving them into the hard ground as he did so. In an instant he had the shade of the young girl by her throat. Angel screamed and thrashed as the pale doctor smirked viciously.

"Ooo. Isn't this interesting." His grip tightened causing the young girl's scream to be abruptly cut off. "You managed to mentally call out to one of these two fools. How interesting, you never showed any kind of telepathic abilities during testing." His tongue darted out of his lips wetting them. "I will enjoy testing that once I pry your location out of your head."

"LIKE HELL YOU WILL!" The two gatekeepers roared at him. Orochimaru tried to dodge their attacks, he really did, but as he saw the leg that seemed to crawl in slow motion towards his gut, and felt the object speeding towards the back of his head, all he could do was watch as the attack moved to fast for him to even begin to respond. When he felt the impact in his gut the air was ripped from his body, every muscle contracted as the blow burrowed into him. It wasn't over however as the second attack smashed into his head. He nearly blacked out right there as his vision flashed. In that short time his body lost all feeling and his grip on Angel's throat fell limp, not a second later Alex burst through the air, plucking the little sister out of the air. He skid to a stop a few yards away Jason joining him in a flash of movement, ready to attack the heaving doctor the second he recovered. Alex placed the young girl gently on her feet, helping her regain her balance.

"Are you okay?" He asked softly. Angel nodded, her small shadowed hands running over her black throat. "Good, but I need you to get out of here. It's not safe for you here." Her mouth wasn't visible but Alex could still see the frown form on her face.

_"But daddy…"_ she began but Alex wasn't having it. "No, you need to leave now. We can't fight this man and protect you at the same time." Angel slumped slightly in sadness, no doubt due to the fact that she was being sent away just after seeing Alex since he had traveled to the universe. He could feel for the girl, in a way he was somewhat put off by the inability to contact her and the silence that had persisted between the two of them since he had arrived was unsettling. She had grown on him during his time on Gateway, and he found himself worrying for the girl, more than he would have expected himself to.

"Alex…" Jason warned, his eyes never leaving the doctor as he slowly pushed himself upwards.

"Listen, I'll make it up to you." Alex said quickly, hoping to get Angel back to safety. "Promise."

Angel fixed her warm yellow eyes on him and held out her hand, pinkie extended.

_"Pinkie Promise?"_ Alex held back a sigh and gave her his best comforting smile and wrapped his own digit around hers.

"Pinkie Promise." That seemed to be it as Angel's body slowly began to fade, but just before she could she spoke once more.

_"Daddy?"_

"Yeah?"

_"Kick his ass."_

Alex blinked once before Angel faded from the strange realm. With a chuckle he turned to face the pale doctor, who snarled at the duo, blood trailing down his chin. Alex rolled his shoulders once before settling into a combat stance.

"Now let's try this again."

ΩΩΩ

(Daniel, Anchorage Memorial)

The vault dweller yelped as he ducked, narrowly avoiding being wacked upside his head by a Mirelurk. He rolled backwards and brought his rifle up and fired, the bullet rebounded harmlessly off the giant crabs tough exoskeleton. Dan didn't know why he had agreed to this. His travel back to Megaton from the minefield had been quick, and almost immediately after returning to her, with a landmine no less, she had immediately asked him to help her with the second chapter of her book, and for the life of him he couldn't bring himself to say no. Of course he was reluctant to continue especially when she said one of the subjects was on how to treat injuries. Something he knew nothing about. Mostly when he was injured he just pumped himself full of stimpacks until the pain stopped. Granted it wasn't the most efficient way to use his limited medical supplies, nor was it the smartest but it was all he could do. Thus this explained how reluctant he was to get crippled in the name of research, so he just settled for jumping off one of the many walkways in the small town when there was no one around to look at him like he was crazy. This was probably both a stupid and smart thing to do, smart in the fact that he didn't get injured in a fire fight that could be potentially deadly, stupid in the fact that he was purposefully injuring himself.

It also didn't help that he landed in such a way that he managed to injure both his left leg and all the ribs along that side. Of course he immediately sought Moria, who with that strange glint in her eye as she babbled on, fixing he leg and ribs occasionally taking notes, never once did her voice dip out of the permanent cheerful tone. It almost made him want to hit her.

And now here he was trying to escape the Mirelurks that now hunted him because he had messed with their eggs.

'That woman and her book will kill me.' He thought frantically as he fired his rifle again. He thankfully scored a perfect hit as the bullet ripped through the soft tissue of the crab's face and scrambled its brains. Not taking any second chances bolted back up the catwalk, hoping to escape before he got into any more trouble. However it was not to be as a shrill cry ripped through his ears, he immediately toppled over into the ground, his head throbbing painfully. In his pained state he glanced back in the direction of the cry's origin to see something that didn't at all look like a Mirelurk stalking towards him. It stood tall, well over eight feet, it looked largely humanoid in form, its body covered in greenish blue scales, webbing attaching it's sides to its upper arms, and took up the pace between its fingers. A dome shaped head sitting on its shoulders, large red gills running up the sides of its scaled face, fanged teeth bared and beady black eyes staring into him.

Daniel attempted to push himself upwards but his balance betrayed him. He struggled to get his feet under him as the scaled giant stalked closer to him, arms flared outwards. As he struggled to stand Daniel noticed that all the other Mirelurks in the room stood stark still, watching as the giant moved in closer. Daniel search frantically for his hunting rifle, only to see it a ways away from him. Had he been able to stand it would have been a simple matter to retrieve it, but given his current state he didn't see that happening. With haste he opened his Pipboy and quickly tapped on one of the weapons in his inventory. The giant stepped closer, teeth parting as it hissed. Daniel felt his Pipboy heat up as it registered the command. The giant began to suck in air rearing back as the air filled its lungs. A silver rifle materialized in Daniel's hands. And he squeezed the trigger.

The red head gasped painfully as the rifle but smacked into his shoulder, a pained cry escaped his lips as the recoil agitated his still healing ribs, the pain punching through the med-x he had taken for it. The creature cried out as the high caliber round punched a hole in its side. Daniel gnashed his teeth as he forced himself upright, demanding that his feet stay under him. He brought the rifle to his waist and fired twice only for the shots to go wide. He fired two more times, the bullets grazing the creature's shoulder. It hissed angrily, taking a careful step backwards having promptly learned that what Daniel was holding was bad news. He backed up the stairs, keeping his weapon trained on the creature. He wasn't in any shape to fight the giant creature, not without injuring himself in the process. The scaled beast took a single step forward, and Daniel pulled the trigger.

_Click_

The vault dweller cursed as he turned and bolted up the stairs, the giant stomped after him, capitalizing on the fact that Daniel's magazine had run empty. Daniel hissed with every step he took as he ran to the exit, bobbing and weaving through the various Mirelurks that impeded his escape. He was rather thankful at this point and time that while in full charge the crabs were fast, but they couldn't turn worth a damn. He managed to escape without major injury, only his wounded leg and ribs shouting in protest of his actions. He allowed himself to relax slightly and began to walk back to the outside to the dust filled wasteland that awaited him.

The worst part was that he still had to test the Mole rat repellant.

ΩΩΩ

(Alex, Mindscape)

I winced as I landed on my feet after recovering from one of Orochimaru's particularly powerful kicks, my muscles screaming out at me to stop. The fight was going better now that Jason and I had gotten a speed boost but it still didn't help that Orochimaru was just faster than us and stronger by a long shot. I took a moment to catch my breath as I attempted to gain a bit of rest. It didn't last as I was forced to jump to the side, catching Jason as he too was launched in my direction. When we came down I disengaged, rolling to dissipate my inertia and return to my feet, Jason doing the same.

I scowled at the doctor from where he stood, lines of blood trailing out of the corner of his mouth, panting lightly as his mouth formed a frustrated snarl, baring his stained teeth at us. It was mildly satisfying to see the previously cocky and arrogant doctor frustrated that we had been set on a more equal fighting level; he couldn't totally dominate us by use of pure speed. But again that didn't really help that he was stronger than us. I glanced back at Jason, watching as he knelt, trying to regain his breath. When I looked back to Orochimaru I couldn't help but think that we were missing something. It was truly frustrating, whenever I thought I had the answer it would speed away like a gazelle fleeing a lion.

"Damn it." Jason cursed as he struggled to his feet. "We're doing too little damage and to slowly and taking too much too quickly." He hawked up a bloody glob, "We can't beat him like this, and he's too fast, too strong."

Then it hit me like a freight train, my breathing stopped as I glanced around the dark landscape, taking in the darkness that surrounded us, the gray floor that supported us. One word echoed through my the area, echoing like thunder

Mindscape.

Orochimaru and Jason jumped at the sudden sound, looking for its origin only to come up blank. I let out a laugh, drawing attention from the two of them. I stood to my full height, the pain seeming to be blown away like dust in the wind.

"Alex what the hell?" Jason asked. I could feel his eyes darting over my form as the injuries disappeared. "What did you do!?" I looked at him as he stood hunched over panting. I smiled as I thought it over; it had taken me so much longer to figure it out that it should have.

"To answer that question, I must ask one." Jason scowled and let out a tired growl, I knew he hated it when peopled answered a question with a question but I didn't know if I would ever get a chance to ask this in a serious setting, and my inner fanboy demanded that I do so.

"Tell me Jason." I started, "Do you think that's air you're breathing?"

His breath hitched, blue eyes widening in realization, before they contracted with annoyance.

"You're a dick." He spat as he too stood, wounds disappearing as if they were never there.

"You mad bro?" I said cheekily, smirking as his ire rose.

"What are you two talking about!" We turned to look at the doctor, fists clenched, and his whole frame shook. One would think it was with the anger of being ignored, but the look in his cruel yellow eyes spoke a different tale, those eyes which had looked down at us with amusement of our struggle against him, mocking our insignificance when compared to him. Those eyes which I had hated more than anything throughout the fight. I smirked at him; his eyes didn't say he was afraid. No they said he was terrified, terrified of the possible truth we had discovered.

"You know exactly what we're talking about." I said as I turned to face him.

"The mindscape you called it. Our mindscape." Jason continued as he stepped next to me.

"You took quite the risk coming to this place, for this is our turf. This is our world." Orochimaru took began to walk backwards, his eyes darting across the landscape.

"It is here we are most powerful."

"Here where you are the ant."

"It is here we are GOD!"

In that instant Orochimaru turned and bolted, faster than anything I'd ever seen, the ground under him cracking with each step. Not that it mattered, not a second after we were literally running beside him. It was amazing, neither of us we even trying to keep up with him. The power I held at my fingers was exhilarating. The doctor caught sight of us and turned at an abrupt angle. We both stopped, smiling as he attempted to get away. I flashed forward, appearing in his path, my back turned to him. I looked over my shoulder to see horror flash across his face as he tried to turn in another direction only to slam into Jason, bouncing off and onto his back.

"Where do you think you're going?" Jason asked, cracking his knuckles.

"We are just getting started."

* * *

**Chapter nine out! **

**Alex and Jason were on the ropes there for a while but now Orochimaru is gonna get it. Now they are gonna bring the hammer down. **

**And then there's Daniel, traveling across the wastes, helping Moria with her book.**

**Sorry for the delay but here's a new chapter.**

**All reviews are welcome!**

**Arokhsteel is out!**


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: I own only my Characters and lore**

"Quick move!"~ Person talking

'Bang'~ telepathic communication

**"Time to attack."**~ Synthesized voice

_"Three dog here. / Daddy! / Report in."_~ Radio/Shade/Comm. Speech

**Critical Systems failure**~ Computer text/ Speech

Chapter 10: To Skin a Snake

(Mindscape)

A shockwave ripped across the land, tearing up the ground as it passed through the air. Orochimaru cried out in pain as he sailed through the air only to get kicked higher into the air by Jason as he suddenly appeared in the doctor's flight path.

"Damn." The doctor muttered through bloody teeth. "Damn it!"

Alex appeared above him and propelled his fist forward into Orochimaru's gut. Blood leapt from the pale man's mouth as his assent was halted. Then Alex pulled back and threw a second punch, this one launching Orochimaru back into the ground, the impact caused a crater several feet wide and deep to form. The pale doctor groaned as he silently cursed himself. He had been content to play with them before he killed them. His telepathic powers gave him more control over the mindscape than the average human, but it wasn't much. When he had entered the minds of his prisoner's be them raiders, paladins, enclave, or just slaves he was like a storm, a hurricane that ripped through their minds plucking every little thing out of them and adding it to his own growing power. But when he separated that maelstrom and entered the minds of Alex and Jason, he felt something strange. What should have been a simple task of ripping their minds asunder was so much more. Suddenly all his power counted for nothing. Somehow, their minds were both equal to half of his own strength. His usual powers were reduced to manipulating the environment around him.

The doctor winced as he pushed himself upwards, his body aching in pain. Now all he could do was reinforce his mental body so he would survive the beating the duo gave him as he attempted to find a way out of his current predicament. He wasn't sure as to how but the two had merged their mindscapes, thus bringing together his two halves, but also combining their natural mental prowess. Form then he could only amplify his speed and strength. Then that girl had appeared, his assault on her seemed to awaken that power, and now they had mastered it. But that wasn't the reason he had run before. When Alex had finally understood and gained mastery over his mind in this world he felt the man's mind grow, and grow, and grow until their seemed to be no end to it, then Jason mastered his mind and the very same happened. It was then Orochimaru realized what he had unleashed upon himself. They were gods, and he was but an ant in their presence, hopelessly outmatched in every way possible. Unable to stop them from demolishing him, unable to leave because of some unknown influence that prevented him from doing so. As he pulled himself out of the crater Jason and Alex landed, looking positively giddy at their newfound powers. Alex turned to Jason and said something Orochimaru didn't catch as his ears were still ringing from his impact.

Alex then crouched down, turning so his left shoulder was facing the doctor, his arms cupped back behind him, his face set in concentration. Just as the ringing in his ears stopped the doctor could hear a faint sound leave the man's lips.

"Ka."

Orochimaru frowned in confusion, 'what the hell is he doing now?' he thought, as he pushed himself to his feet.

"Me."

The doctor scowled and decided not to test his luck and began to run in the opposite direction.

"Ha."

The man frowned at the sudden increase in Alex's voice, it seemed to echo slightly, and an energetic ring filled the air. He glanced backward to see a brilliant blue glow emanating from behind the gray eyed man. Orochimaru's eyes widened in alarm as he doubled his pace, only for Alex's voice to ring out loud across the blank field of gray.

"Me."

Even as the doctor ran, the blue light rushed past him making his panic rise. Then Alex appeared in front of the doctor, a sphere of blue energy bubbling between his hands, demanding to be set free. Alex opened his mouth only for an otherworldly roar to escape it.

"HAAAAA!"

He thrust his hands forward, launching the attack toward the pale doctor. Orochimaru couldn't move as the blast hit him head on. He screamed as a burning sensation flooded his whole being, the physical force of the attack, as he tried to push against the attack he heard another call.

"Galick Gun."

The doctor was able to turn his head enough to see Jason, whom he was closing in on, a ball of purple energy nestled in his hands.

"Fire!"

He thrust the ball outwards, the purple glow enveloped his whole being and burst forward. Orochimaru couldn't even blink before the attack met Alex's, halting his movement and doubling the pain. The doctor screamed as the two forces fought one another for dominance. After what felt to be the longest time to the trapped man the two forces suddenly stopped, causing the doctor to fall harshly to the ground. The second he made contact with the ground, a bloody torrent rushed up and out the man's mouth, painting the ground with blood. Then when he just then picked up on something peculiar, I strange ring and… chirping birds? The doctor glanced up wards to see one of his assailants high over head, Alex to be presence. His hand held high above his head head and above that a massive transparent blue ball of swirling energy, several other balls of smaller size orbiting it like moons around a planet. Suddenly the chirping was loud in his ear and he could just barely turn his head to see Jason as he thrust his hand into the doctor's chest, his fingers closed together, cloaked in a storm of black lightning.

"Kuro Chidori Esiō!" He cried out, the lightning forming into a narrow column and expanded outwards, pushing the doctor upwards and into Alex, who brought his hand down and the myriad of blue orbs down on the doctor.

"Chou Odama Wakusei Rasengan!" Orochimaru couldn't scream as the blade of black lightning dissipated only for his body to suddenly become assaulted by Alex's own attack. In that moment it felt like his body was being drilled into, a torrent of violent rotations tore into the mental shield he had constructed around himself, within the first few seconds of the attack the shield had fallen and he was taking the full brunt of the attack, soon after he was launched back into the ground, only to see Jason holding what looked to be an oversized meat cleaver of a sword.

"Getsuga…" The gatekeeper began, a shining white energy engulfing the blade; he then swung the weapon in a wide arc, the energy blasting off and towards the doctor. "Tenshō!"

The attack slammed into him, launching the pale man to the side. When he crashed back into the ground Orochimaru found that he could not move, he demanded that his legs move, his arms push himself upwards but they defied him, remaining immobile.

Eventually the doctor stopped struggling all together, his body refused to move, and he could feel his blood leak out onto the floor.

'This is the end.' He thought, 'I've taken to much damage, even now I can only just hold this form.' He chuckled bitterly. 'If I had known that I would die like this I would have experimented more. Maybe, just maybe I could have learned the secrets to the Star Dragon's immortality. Oh well… guess it'll be up to the rest of the Legion to combat these two.' Suddenly a rough kick in the side forced the injured doctor to roll over onto his back with a pained groan. Through half lidded eyes he looked upon Alex and Jason as they stood over him, looking proud in their victory over the him.

"Any last words?" Alex asked as he rolled his shoulders.

Even though it pained him so, the doctor smirked through bloody teeth. "Your wills are strong." He began, earning slightly confused looks from the two men, "And you do not give up easily. This just means he will have more fun breaking you." Anger flashed into their eyes and both held out their hands towards him, fingers spread, azure orbs materializing in them. In that moment the multiverse flashed though the mad doctor's head. Time seemed to slow as his mind processed what he saw. Then his smirk turned to a smile.

'It makes so much sense now.' He thought as the energy beams fired, crawling toward his prone form. 'I guess that makes dying here a little more bearable.' This was his last thought as the twin blasts impacted his body, obliterating it. In the end, much to Alex and Jason's irritation, the mad doctor died with a smile on his face.

ΩΩΩ

Back in the base, hours after Alex and Jason's assault had begun, the two stood still as statues, Orochimaru standing not far away from them. Suddenly however the doctor's eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed with a heavy thud. At the same time however Alex and Jason stumbled forward, just barely catching themselves as they exited the mindscape they were forced into. The two coughed a few times, their throats dry and rough, hunger gnawed at their insides.

"Damn." Jason groaned as he stretched, his muscles aching in protest.

"Think we can get back to what we were originally here to do?" Alex asked idly, giving Orochimaru's head a good kick, resulting in a series of sharp cracks. Signaling that he had broken the pale man's neck.

Jason winced at the sound but shook it off quickly enough and gestured to the machinery around them, "You think we might be able to find anything of use here?"

Alex shook his head, "I get the feeling we aren't that lucky." He sighed and rubbed the back of his armored neck. "Still it would be moronic of us not to check. So let's go at it."

"Gotcha."

ΩΩΩ

"Well isn't that unfortunate." Said a monotone voice. "One of our best telepaths beaten by two children with no clear mental training." a grunt echoed in the large room, a man walked to the hologram that displayed the two new gatekeepers, his eyes focused on them, or rather on Alex.

"That one." He said, "He is advancing in his abilities rather quickly. If this continues then we will have to terminate him."

"Send Vector in. He could kill the two of them the second he saw them." Said a voice.

The man shook his head. "We do not yet know how far along Vector is, and on the off chance they survived, we would have given way our best man. No we will deal with them as we would anyone else."

"Are you sure that is the best course of action? At the rate the two of them are going they could become quite the threat in time." Asked a third voice

The man brought a cigarette to his lips and took in a deep breath, holding the smoke in for a moment before he released the cloud. "I don't remember asking you for your opinion on the matter." He said lightly, looking over the hologram as the image changed to a room full of vats filled with red liquid, then to a man as he was injected with the very same liquid. He convulsed once before blood began to leak out of his nose and ears.

"We are not here to hold this universe, thus we do not need to react immediately to this. It was a rather small facility and there wasn't much on the computers that will help them." He shook his hand gently, shaking the ashes off the smoke stick, before taking in another drag. It was quiet for a moment before one of the voices spoke up.

"How far are we in development?"

The man shrugged uncaringly, the image switching off. "Well within acceptable ranges."

A tense silence followed, the other voices remaining silent as the man took in another long breath of the cigarette. "Is that all?" he asked, idly flicking the cigarette butt.

"Yes sir." Said the second voice, clear and tense, obviously none too happy with how it was brushed off so easily.

"Then I will contact you when there is a significant development." Although he said 'significant development' he really meant, 'when I can be bothered to contact you.' after a second a short beep signaled that the connection had been cut. The man sat back into his chair, two images springing before him, one held headshots of Alex and Jason, the other much larger image was a map of the multiverse the Legion had thus far discovered, each of the 'stars' lighting up briefly as it was highlighted. Each universe had an energy signature, each one different from the other. Even daughter universes or parent universes the energy signature was similar, but ultimately different. Because of this people also emitted the same energy signature. Thus this could be used as a form of tracking system. The man waited patiently as he waited for the result. It would take some time given the vastness of the discovered multiverse but it could help narrow down the universe they hailed from by similar signatures in any of the universes the Legion had discovered. This was the reason the man was surprised and confused when a beep echoed through the room signaling the search's completion.

His eyes widened when he saw the number of 'stars' that became highlighted, yet blinked at the same time.

"How is that possible?" he asked himself, his eyes darting over the hologram.

Every single 'star' on the image was highlighted, and yet blinked at the same time. Somehow the energy signature the two gave off was just enough to say that they could be from that universe, yet little enough for it to not be their home universe. The man glanced at the headshots of the two men, his eyes narrowing as suspicion clawed at him.

"Just what are you?" he asked, his mouth upturning into a smile. "Alexander Miles. Jason Vickers, What are you?"


End file.
